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Our Speakers

Deb Chachra

Professor of Engineering

Olin College of Engineering

Speaker Profile

Deb Chachra, PhD, is the author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World (2023) and a Professor of Engineering at Olin College of Engineering near Boston, Massachusetts, where she was one of the earliest faculty members. She works primarily at the intersection of technology and culture, and she speaks, writes, consults, and facilitates globally around design, education (particularly engineering education), and equity and inclusion issues.

Jeff Busby

Chief Operating Officer

TransLink

Speaker Profile
Jeff is an accomplished transportation executive with 20 years of transportation planning and engineering experience, including more than 14 years in Metro Vancouver and six years in Chicago. Currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at TransLink, Jeff’s focus is creating stronger alignment across the enterprise to advance the organization’s strategic priorities. Jeff also leads a diverse portfolio of corporate functions that have an enterprise-wide strategic support function. These include the Real Estate, Business Technology Services, and Internal Audit and Continuous Improvement divisions. Jeff is responsible for strategy implementation and works to ensure business plans, priorities, and decisions are aligned across the enterprise to help deliver TransLink’s ambitious vision for the future. Jeff is also a registered professional engineer who holds a Master of Science in Transportation from M.I.T.

Freda Leong

National Leader, Indigenous Communities Manager

Associated Engineering

Speaker Profile
Freda has over 28-years of experience in the planning, management, assessment, design, and construction of water and wastewater treatment, civil infrastructure, subdivisions, and community buildings and has been working with Indigenous communities since 2005. She currently works directly on projects in BC and the territories. As the National Leader, Freda collaborates with staff across the company to provide input and advice on Indigenous Community projects across Canada.

Ian Pilkington

Chief Engineer

BC Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure

Speaker Profile
Ian Pilkington is the Chief Engineer for the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Ian started his career with the Ministry in 1991 as a Geotechnical Engineer. Over his 31 year career with the Ministry, Ian has held several positions before taking over the position of Chief Engineer. Ian is responsible for setting the engineering standards that the Ministry and consultant designers use on public highway infrastructure, which includes climate adaptation standards.

Lucy Tukua

Technical Director of Regenerative Outcomes, Kaihautū Whakarito

Mott MacDonald

Speaker Profile
Mauri ora ki te taiao, ngā Iwi taketake, ngā tūpuna matua. Acknowledging the life and vitality of the environment, indigenous peoples and our ancestors now passed. Lucy is a passionate advocate for place, indigeneity and community. As Kaihautū Whakarito, Regenerative outcomes lead she ensures that holistically projects take a place sourced, culture led and community fed whole systems approach. Indigenous worldviews support that if the environment is healthy, so are the people.

Donald Trapp

Executive Project Director, Fraser River Tunnel Project

Transportation Investment Corp.

Speaker Profile
Donald Trapp is the Executive Project Director for the Fraser River Tunnel Project for Transportation Investment Corporation. Donald has held several roles within the public and private sector including a senior engineering consultant in the mining and hydropower industries. Most recently Donald has been supporting major project infrastructure delivery in BC’s public sector at both Infrastructure BC and now TI Corp.

Tarek Sayed

Professor

University of British Columbia

Speaker Profile
Tarek Sayed is a distinguished professor and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair of Transportation Safety and Advanced Mobility at UBC. He has a distinguished research track record in transportation engineering and has received a high number of honors and awards. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and was the editor of the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering for 8 years.

Sonali Hingorani

Manager, Transportation Planning and New Mobility

City of Richmond

Speaker Profile
Sonali is currently the Manager of Transportation Planning and New Mobility at the City of Richmond. She has been involved in implementing programs and projects to increase access to transport in the community. Sonali’s focus area is on facilitating the integration of emerging transportation technologies and leveraging new mobility options such as e-scooters to help the City achieve its sustainability and health and wellness goals.

Alireza Ahmadnia

Chief Bridge Engineer

BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

Speaker Profile

Alireza Ahmadnia, P.Eng., is the Chief Bridge Engineer at the BC- MoTI. Providing leadership and policy direction, he oversees all aspects of bridge engineering, including planning, design, construction, inspection, evaluation, rehabilitation, and maintenance across the entire ministry. His role ensures a safe, efficient transportation system aligning with evolving needs. He drives ongoing infrastructure improvement and the advancement of engineering standards.

Holly Foxcroft

Lead Planner

TransLink

Speaker Profile
Holly is in her fourth year of leading the Burnaby Mountain Gondola planning process. With multiple areas of learning, collaboration, and “firsts”, the Burnaby Mountain Gondola has provided her with the opportunity to explore a new transit type to connect people and destinations in Metro Vancouver, with lessons learned for transit agencies across North America.

Yavuz Kaya

Seismic Engineer

BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

Speaker Profile
Dr. Yavuz Kaya currently holds a Senior Structural Health Monitoring Engineer position with the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure since 2017. Before that, he used to work as Research Associate at the Civil Engineering Department at the University of British Columbia. His main field of research includes Seismic Monitoring, Structural Health Monitoring, Damage Detection on structures.

Angela Jarvis

E-Mobility Manager

City of Coquitlam

Speaker Profile
As E-Mobility Manager at City of Coquitlam, Angela leads all planning, policy and pilot projects to decarbonize transportation. With experience across both private and public sectors, Angela is responsible for multimodal electrification, including policy development, infrastructure planning, and managing Coquitlam’s shared e-scooter and e-bike pilot.

Gerald Gongos

Campus Planner

Simon Fraser University

Speaker Profile
Gerald Gongos is Simon Fraser University’s Campus Planner. From urban design studies to architectural practice, his 25-year career has encompassed everything from planning documents and business cases, designing guidelines, to creating strategic direction for institutional facilities. Gerald has lead teams and collaborated on long-range plans for neighbourhoods and municipal districts.

Amy Choh

Director Engineering Transportation

City of Burnaby

Speaker Profile
With over 20 years of public and private sector experience, Amy currently sets direction and provides leadership for the Transportation portfolio at City of Burnaby that encompasses all strategic and operational functions, long range transportation planning and policies, asset management and capital programming, parking management and revenue, traffic operations and management, public EV charging operations and strategies, and strategic urban mobility and sustainable initiatives to support Burnaby’s climate action targets. Prior to joining the City of Burnaby, Amy has supported many municipalities in her role as a senior consultant with several engineering firms as well as working with City of Vancouver to expand the City’s active transportation network and the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

David Currie

Construction Manager

City of Vancouver

Speaker Profile
David is a senior engineering manager with over 35 years of experience in municipal engineering, transportation engineering, property negotiations, public consultation and project management. David has been in responsible charge of over $400 million of civil engineering projects for the cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Vancouver. David specializes in managing multi-faceted engineering construction projects.

Matteo Agnoloni

Structural Engineer

Associated Engineering

Speaker Profile
Matteo is a structural engineer with nearly 10 years of experience consisting of bridge rehabilitation design, pedestrian bridge design, contract administration, construction supervision, bridge condition assessment, and project management. He is currently working as the Deputy Project Manager and Contract Administrator for the Granville Interim Connector and North Loops Reconfiguration, which is a major active transportation improvement project for the City of Vancouver.

Jeff Doble

Principal

Perkins&Will

Speaker Profile
As Perkins&Will’s Director of Transportation, Jeff is involved in local and global transportation projects learning lessons and carrying best practices to and from every new client and project team. Jeff’s continued interest in all aspects of major infrastructure projects has allowed him to focus exclusively on public transportation projects for the last 15 years of his professional career. Jeff regularly speaks at events and conferences on the importance of design excellence to our public transit environments, as well as strategies for improving our infrastructure procurement to realize the incredible potential of these important civic projects.

Brendon James

TDM Coordinator

District of North Vancouver

Speaker Profile

Brendon has worked in both regional and local government, facilitating campaigns that focus on electrification of light, medium and heavy-duty vehicle fleets and EV charging infrastructure in commercial and residential buildings. Currently Brendon works with the District of North Vancouver as a Transportation Demand Management Coordinator, facilitating on programs that address congestion, enhancing road safety and supporting the shift to active transportation and shared modes.

Adrian Watson

Principal, Design Director

Perkins and Will

Speaker Profile
Through a career of over 30 years, Adrian has contributed to, and led, the design of award-winning projects across Europe, North America, Australasia, the Far and Middle East.
Although Adrian has experience across multiple building types, urban-scale infrastructure projects are of particular importance to him, with the work of our studio continuing his dedication to rail and aviation projects that go ‘beyond transportation’.

Edward Porter

Principal

MODUS

Speaker Profile

Trained as a landscape architect and practicing as an urban designer, Edward Porter is a registered professional planner with a keen interest in community dialogue at the heart of the masterplanning process. A native Tennessean, Edward’s passion for placemaking stems from a culture of storytelling: he sees design as conversation to understand, facilitate and implement change. He is grateful to the Sts’ailes community for welcoming him to assist in the development of a community masterplan.

JR Hammond

Executive Director

Canadian Advanced Air Mobility

Speaker Profile
JR Hammond is the Executive Director of CAAM, the Canadian Advanced Air Mobility Consortium.

CAAM is a Federal Not For Profit organization that acts as the catalyst for the new Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) industry in Canada. Advanced Air Mobility is defined as unlocking Zero-Emission (Electric & Hydrogen) Aircraft to operate in Canada both as flying vehicles and larger commercial airplanes.

Joost Meyboom

Technical Director

Charter Project Delivery

Speaker Profile

Joost Meyboom is a Technical Director with an extensive background in the development and delivery of complex bridge, highway, transit, marine, rail and heavy industry projects with specific attention to innovative solutions that meet site and project requirements. Joost has worked with contractors, financers, government agencies and architects to develop and implement award winning projects.

Alex Sandoval

Senior Manager

TransLink

Speaker Profile
With over 15 years of experience in Architecture and Urban Design, Alex has been an advocate for transit as a key driver to improve the livability of our communities. He joined TransLink in 2021 in the role of Senior Manager of Facilities Development. In this role, he manages the team responsible for developing and design standards for TransLink’s integrated network of customer facilities with a focus on improving customer experience.

Steve Brown

Manager

City of Vancouver

Speaker Profile
Steve Brown manages the City of Vancouver’s Transit Integration and Projects Branch. He leads a team that works with the Province, TransLink and other senior governments to facilitate planning and construction of transit in the City of Vancouver. This includes upgrades to existing SkyTrain stations, facilitating the construction of the Broadway Subway project, planning for the extension of SkyTrain to UBC and bus speed and reliability improvements.