Executive Director
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Blair Lorenzo is a world-renowned urban theorist who... wait, this has to be honest!? Bah! Blair is a professional urbanist and writer who has been studying cities and what makes them work for most of her adult life. Her work has long focused on the vital importance of transportation for urban function, including how transit shapes cities and the interaction between transit and the public realm.

Director of Outreach
Yangbo leaves no major economic sector or global city untouched when it comes to bringing people together to catalyze technology, business, and social innovation that drives societal transformation. Ever since his first foray into online publishing as community manager with IDEAS Global Challenge, MIT’s in-house social innovation accelerator, he has been making a constant effort to close reinforcing loops of global online connectivity and local offline action.

Director of Electric Traction and Technical Planning
Madison has a bachelor of science degree in Computer Engineering, and works in the tech industry, and previously interned in the Utility Industry. She has had a lifelong interest in trains, and transportation, and has been advocating for transportation issues since she was 13, trying to get a street light installed at a dangerous intersection with local government officials.

Robert got involved in the Effective Transit Alliance. because the issues of transit construction costs and ridership growth greatly interest him. He grew up as a young child in Astoria, Queens near the N and the Hell Gate bridge and later in Central Jersey. He still owns no car and hopes to keep it that way and make it more practical for more people.

Alon lived in New York in 2006-11 and had to think a lot about how to get by subway between Morningside Heights and political event spaces in Brownstone Brooklyn and all over Queens. Originally from Israel and Singapore, they got interested in international comparisons, which led to the Pedestrian Observations blog and, years later, to the work of the Transit Costs Project, analyzing why the construction costs of subways in New York are an order of magnitude higher than in low-cost countries including Sweden, Italy, Turkey, and others.

William is a professional software engineer and amateur urbanist. He is passionate about transit for its ability to move people efficiently, its low carbon footprint, and its positive effects on livability. He grew up on Long Island, lives in Brooklyn, and commutes to Manhattan on the subway.