Keynote

Bio:

ASCE Service:

• Member, ASCE Transportation Policy Committee
• Co-Chair, ASCE-T&DI Task Force on Engineering Smart Mobility for Smart Cities
• Past Member, ASCE Committee on America’s Infrastructure
• Past President, ASCE Transportation and Development Institute
• Past Chair, ASCE Urban Transportation Division

Lerner-Lam is Founder and President of Palisades Consulting Group, Inc.  She has 46 years of experience in US transportation policy, planning, operations and standards development, 27 years of highway and venture capital experience in China and is the recipient of numerous awards and citations from many professional societies.  She received her master’s degree in Civil Engineering-Transportation Systems from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Princeton University, where she was elected by her classmates to serve as class president and later appointed by the President of the university to serve as a trustee. She also holds Certificates in Blockchain Technologies from MIT/Sloan School of Business and Management of Transportation Programs and Systems from University of California, Irvine.

Lerner-Lam co-chaired the 2019 International Conference on Transportation and Development, currently co-chairs the “Engineering Smart Mobility for Smart Cities” (aka “ESX”) Standards Task Force for the Transportation and Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers and serves on the expert review panel for the ASCE Future World Vision project. She is a past president of the Transportation and Development Institute and past chair of the Urban Transportation Division.

Born in Bronx, NY, Lerner-Lam was appointed Director of Planning and Operations for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board in the early 1980’s and served as the gubernatorial member at-large on the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Transit Corporation.  She chaired several technical panels and committees for the National Academies Transportation Research Board and led landmark “Transit Communications Interface Profiles” data standards development activities in public transit for the US Department of Transportation.  She is a charter Board Member of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, a Fellow and former Board Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the first elected President of the Transportation and Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.  She was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, served on the Transition Team for the Governor of New York, was a policy advisor for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress as well as a member of an expert panel for the Office of Net Assessment of the Office of the US Secretary of Defense.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering cited for “accelerating adoption of intelligent transportation systems and smart city codes and standards in engineering practice,” Lerner-Lam received the American Society of Civil Engineers 2022 William H. Wisely American Civil Engineer Award for “her long, established record of involvement supporting technical advancement, JEDI principles, and advancing the profession at the local, national, and international level, as well as her continued involvement with T&DI and the Future World Vision project.” She also won the ASCE 2010 James Laurie Prize for “[making] a definite contribution to the advancement of transportation engineering, either in research, planning, design or construction, these contributions being made…through notable performance or specific actions which have served to advance transportation engineering.”