T&DI Board of Governors
The ASCE Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) is led by an 8-member Board of Governors. The Board includes four elected members, two appointed members, one appointed Younger Member (YM), and one ASCE Presidential Appointee.
T&DI's FY25 Board includes the following members:
Scott Murrell, P.E., M.ASCE
President
Scott Murrell started his professional career with the Port Authority in 1982 as a Civil Design Engineer, rising through the ranks to become the Chief Civil Engineer in 2005. As the Chief Civil Engineer, Mr. Murrell was responsible for overseeing more than $1 billion of transportation infrastructure projects, including a $300 million runway reconstruction at John F. Kennedy International Airport along with numerous roads, bridge, tunnel, and port facility projects. In 2015 he joined Applied Research Associates (ARA) as Director of Commercial Aviation Services. Since joining ARA, Mr. Murrell has been the technical lead for support of the FAA’s Airport Technology Research, focusing on airport pavements, and airport consulting projects.
Mr. Murrell is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of New York and New Jersey and a recognized authority in transportation engineering. He has won numerous professional awards, including the 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Robert Horonjeff Award for the Advancement of Air Transportation Engineering and 2010 ASCE Civil Engineer of the Year (New Jersey Section). He has participated in several professional organizations, including TRB, AASHTO, ACRP, ASCE, and FAA committees, boards, and panels.
Scott is a charter member of T&DI and has served in a variety of roles including Airfield Pavement Committee Chair, Council Chair, and two-year appointed board member. He was co-chair of the First T&DI Congress, which later became the ASCE International Conference on Transportation & Development. Scott is a familiar face at Airfield and Highway Pavement Specialty Conferences, having served as co-chair and steering committee member from 2006 through 2020. He also continues to be an active member of the Airfield Pavement Committee.
Diniece Mendes, EIT, A.M.ASCE
Vice-President
Diniece serves as Director of Freight Mobility at the New York City Department of Transportation where she oversees a multi-million-dollar program to advance urban freight policies and initiatives that reduce the adverse impacts of trucks on infrastructure and communities while improving safety, truck delivery efficiency, and New York City's economic competitiveness.
Diniece has 8 years of progressive experience leading, streamlining, assessing, and implementing large-scale transportation planning and performance systems across the Greater New York City area. Diniece has held several leadership roles within T&DI, ranging from chairing the Infrastructure Systems Committee, and Planning and Development Council, and most recently supporting Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. In New York, she is the President of the City College of New York Engineering School Alumni, a board member of the CE Civil Engineering Advisory Board and is extremely passionate about building connections with CCNY engineering students, faculty, and alumni. She is a registered Engineering Intern (E.I.) in the State of New York.
Diniece graduated from the City College of New York with a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering in 2012 and received her Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Diniece lives in Brooklyn with her husband, loves to travel, entertain, and enjoys rich cultural experiences.
Chandra Bhat, Ph.D., M.ASCE
Past-President
Dr. Bhat has a joint appointment between the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) and the Department of Economics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a world-renowned expert in the area of transportation and urban policy design, with far-reaching implications for public health, energy dependence, greenhouse gas emissions, and societal quality of life. Methodologically, he has been a pioneer in the formulation and use of statistical and econometric methods to analyze human choice behavior. His current research includes the social and environmental aspects of transportation, safety and planning implications of connected and automated smart transportation systems (CASTS), and data science and predictive analytics.
Jianming Ma, Ph.D., P.E., PMP®, M.ASCE
Treasurer
Dr. Jianming Ma is the Director of the Traffic Safety Division’s Traffic Management Section at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). He oversees the development of statewide traffic management programs, including Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Traffic Signal Systems, Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO), and Traffic Incident Management (TIM).
With over twenty-nine years of progressive experience in research, contract management, project and program management, traffic engineering, traffic management, and traffic safety, Dr. Ma has a proven track record of optimizing operations, developing high-performing teams, and improving processes and procedures. He has published over 50 technical papers and reports in the areas of ITS, traffic safety, connected and automated vehicles, and traffic engineering.
Dr. Ma is a member of the ASCE T&DI Board of Governors and the founding co-chair of the ASCE T&DI Connected & Autonomous Vehicle Impacts Committee. He also serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Human Factors of Infrastructure Design and Operations (ACH40) and the TRB Committee on Traffic Signal Systems (ACP25).
Dr. Ma is the Immediate Past President of the Chinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA) and the Research Development and Implementation Coordinator for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Committee on Transportation System Operations. He currently serves on ITS America’s Committee on V2X and Connected Transportation, and Committee on Automated Vehicles. Dr. Ma represents the U.S. on the Road Network Operations/ITS Technical Committee of the World Road Association (PIARC).
Dr. Ma has been invited to serve on numerous research panels, including those for TxDOT, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2), the AASHTO CAV Working Group, the Cooperative and Automated Transportation Coalition, and the CV Pooled Fund Study (CV PFS). He has also served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Safety Research and as Associate Editor for the 15th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Navneet Garg, Ph.D., F.ASCE
ASCE President-Appointed Member
Dr. Navneet Garg is a Program Manager in Airport Technology R&D Branch at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. He earned his Ph.D. (1997) from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; M.S. (1993) from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago; and B.E (1990) from Karnataka Regional Engineering College, Suratkal, India, all in Civil Engineering.
Dr. Garg has been involved in airport pavement research at FAA’s National Airport Pavement Test Facility since 1998, and manages projects on Accelerated Pavement Testing, Sustainability and Resilience, and Pavement Materials. He conceptualized/developed FAA’s National Airport Pavement & Materials Research Center (NAPMRC) – a $9 million state-of-the-art research facility. Currently he is managing projects on full-scale testing of “green/sustainable” materials, development of advanced pavement analysis software PANDA-AP, and web-based Life Cycle Assessment tool “FAALCAn”. He has authored over 120 papers for peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.
He is a Fellow of ASCE, past Chair of ASCE Airfield Pavements Committee, on Board of Directors of International Society for Asphalt Pavements, Secretary of TRB Aircraft-Airport Compatibility Committee, and Associate Editor of IJPE. He is the recipient of 2023 UIUC Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award, FAA’s 23rd Annual Ellis A. Ohnstad Award for Technical Excellence (2022), 2018 ASCE T&DI Airfield Practitioner Award, and 2004 Engineer of the Year award given by the Southern New Jersey Professional Societies.
John Corbin, P.E., F.ASCE
Appointed Member
John is currently a Senior Advisor to the Transportation Digital Infrastructure and Emerging Technology Initiative in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Secretary.
He recently served as the Emerging Mobility Technologies Program Manager within the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Operations, and as the Director of Traffic Operations in the Wisconsin and Iowa Departments of Transportation. While with the Wisconsin DOT, he served as the State Traffic Engineer, and as the Freeway Operations Engineer and Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Manager for Metropolitan Milwaukee. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Traffic Control Engineer for the City of Milwaukee, and as a Construction Engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation. In addition, he is an adjunct faculty member in the engineering departments at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
John completed his undergraduate work in Transportation Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1986. He went on to obtain a Master of Civil and Environmental Engineering through the University of Illinois-Chicago and UW-Madison, also earning a UW Certificate in Public Administration.
He is a Fellow Member of both the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He also serves on the Board of Governors of ASCE’s Transportation and Development Institute. John is the Digital Infrastructure Initiative Leader within the Transportation Research Board Intelligent Transportation Systems Committee. His previous national professional community roles included membership in the formative leadership group of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Committee on Transportation Systems Operations, and the leadership team of the Strategic Highway Research Program Reliability Technical Coordinating Committee.
Tom Klin, A.M.ASCE
Appointed Member
Tom is a planner with an environmental science background and currently serves as EVP/General Manager of GHD’s Americas Advisory business. He joined GHD in 2019 to support the firm’s growth in infrastructure development and strategic consulting. Prior to joining GHD, he led businesses at Jacobs and CH2M that included significant transportation infrastructure CAPEX projects (in airports, highways, transit/rail and ports), as well as rolling stock procurement and fare collection system modernization. Tom’s career is founded on technical and regulatory expertise and he has progressed to executive leadership, client relationship management, and business growth with US domestic and global responsibilities. Tom is experienced with financial management and stewardship and has a successful track record in strategic planning, business processes and performance metrics. He has previously served in leadership roles on TRB committees and various airport organizations.
Jessica Garcia, P.E., RSP, A.M.ASCE
Appointed Younger Member
Ms. Garcia has been a Transportation Engineer at Choice Engineering Consultants since January 2021, where she’s worked on a multitude of different projects. Her engineering experience includes fatal crash reviews, traffic operations and safety analysis, traffic impact studies, pedestrian/bicyclist safety studies, and planning studies. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Florida and a Florida International University (FIU) alumna, earning both a B.S. (2020) and M.S. (2021) in Civil Engineering from FIU.
A South Florida native, Ms. Garcia is heavily involved in activities in the Miami metropolitan area. She is currently the Chair of T&DI’s Miami-Dade Chapter, the Treasurer of the Miami-Dade Branch, and a Practitioner Advisor for the ASCE FIU Student Chapter. She has previously held several positions within the Miami-Dade Branch including Younger Member Group President, Student Member Relations Chair, and member of the Field Day Scholarship Fundraiser Committee. She has also served as one of the two Florida representatives on the Region 5 Younger Member Advisory Council (YMAC) and as the 2024 Eastern Region Multi-Region Leadership Conference (MRLC) Local Planning Committee Chair.
In addition to her ASCE involvements, Ms. Garcia has engaged in humanitarian activities such as developing FIU Students Involved in Composting – a project aimed at improving FIU’s recycling program, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, conducting beach cleanups, and led fundraising efforts for the American Red Cross and the More Than Pink Walk. Ms. Garcia has won numerous awards, including FIU's Outstanding Graduate Award in Civil Engineering (2020), ASCE Miami-Dade Branch's Young Engineer of the Year (2022), and T&DI’s Outstanding Younger Member Award (2022).