About Us

Senior Associate

Annmarie joined the Center as Senior Associate in 2022. As a public school English and writing instructor for over a decade, she designed curriculum, taught in in-person, online, and hybrid environments, managed varied learning management systems, and helped support diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.  She has also taught writing as a community college adjunct faculty member, served as a theater director, producing plays and videos, and worked as a freelance writer for various newspapers and magazines. She holds a master’s in English and a master’s in Education from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and a bachelor’s in Communication from the University of Hartford.

Expertise: Communications, Education, Curriculum Design

Executive Director

With over 20 years’ experience in government workforce development systems and sector development work, Jack brings deep expertise in the areas of worker training and career ladders. A Ford Foundation/Kennedy School of Government Award for Innovations in State and Local Government winner, prior to joining the Center, Jack served as Deputy Director in the Mayor’s Office of Jobs and Community Services in Boston, Massachusetts.

Expertise: Strategic Planning on Workforce Development; Labor-management Partnerships; Registered Apprenticeships; Frontline Worker Safety and Health

Program Director, Instructional Design

Julie has over a decade experience in instructional systems design, in which she holds a master’s level certificate.  She also has a master’s in urban planning and bachelor’s degree in Human Geography.  She’s been employed at non-profits for all of her professional career and was driven to join the Center in 2008 because of her passion around equity and the role mobility plays.

Expertise: Instructional Systems Design; Signals Maintenance Training; Train-the-Trainer; eLearning

Research Associate

Shayna Gleason joined the Center as a Research Associate in 2022. She holds a Master’s degree in Gerontology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where she is now a doctoral candidate, and holds a BA in Sociology/Anthropology from Carleton College. At UMass Boston, Shayna worked with the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging, where she helped design and implement a program evaluation for a remote employment training program targeting older workers. Before graduate school, Shayna served as Coordinator of Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh, part of the World Health Organization’s international initiative to create inclusive and accessible communities for all ages. Shayna also worked with the Pittsburgh-area paratransit service, ACCESS Transportation Systems, as a community engagement liaison and software trainer.

Expertise: Research, Paratransit, Older Workers

Senior Director for Workforce Education

Pat has over three decades of experience in labor, management, legal, and workforce education, much of it at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  At the Center, she helps develop and support career pathways into frontline positions in transportation, focusing on pre-apprenticeship transit training partnerships–with high schools, workforce development programs, transportation agencies, unions, and colleges—that create career, credential, and degree opportunities, especially for youth in the communities transit serves.  She has a Ph.D. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, a J.D. from the Washington University School of Law, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Rochester.

Expertise: Career Pathways; Youth Pipelines; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Program Manager, Technical Training

James joined the Center in August 2022 with fifteen years of experience in various forms of transit and automotive applications. His career positioned him to be at the forefront of significant advancements in vehicle technologies of all types: hybrid-electric vehicles at Toyota, medium-duty railcars at WMATA, and battery electric technologies and charging infrastructures at Proterra, Inc.

As the Technical Program Manager of Training and Development at Proterra, James led the transit industry into a new era of operating and maintaining battery electric transit buses (BEBs) and charging infrastructure. James built a team of nine training and development experts to guide transit leadership and technicians in their adoption of BEBs. This work ranged from creating brand-new instructional content, to teaching extensive technical courses for national and international transit customers, to building a coalition of industry experts and engineers to support future transit advancements.

James is dedicated to advancing training and workforce development in future technologies for the industry.

Expertise: ZEB/BEB training, Workforce Development, Advancing Transit Technologies,

Senior Policy Analyst

Karitsa has a background in community and urban planning along with housing and transportation research.  She received her master’s in Community Planning from the University of Maryland, College Park and her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Karitza’s work focuses on Center’s participation in the American Apprenticeship Initiative. She also has contributed to Center’s research projects, including several TCRP reports.

Expertise: Operator Recruitment, Training and Retention; Registered Apprenticeships; Elevator/Escalator Maintenance Training

Program Manager, Technical Assistance and Training

Amri has been with the Center since 2011 and helps design learning for transit maintenance occupations in elevator-escalator, signals, railcar, and traction power. Prior to joining the Center, Amri’s career included city planning, and designing and delivering training in information technology, union organizing, and leadership development.

Expertise: Technical Assistance and IT Infrastructure Management; Instructional Systems Design; Traction Power Maintenance Training

Instructional Designer

Brandon has been with the Center since 2019 and serves as one of the instructional designers for the Traction Power consortium. He has also designed instruction for ZEB bus maintenance training and is fast becoming an expert in video instruction technologies. Brandon holds a master’s in Adult Education and Human Resource Development from James Madison University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. His background includes instructional design and organizational development, supplemented with elements of educational technology, E-learning, multimedia development, graphic design and visual literacy.

Expertise: Instruction Design, eLearning, video instruction, Traction Power Maintenance Training, ZEB instruction design.

Researcher

Doug joined the Center as a Researcher in 2022. He holds an MPP, MBA, and a BA in English, all from Brandeis University. At the Transit Workforce Center, he researches topics including best practices in training and program design and works with transit workforce data. He previously interned with a municipal workforce development agency and an education policy research center and worked for almost a decade in higher education, focusing on international student recruitment and enrollment management.

Expertise: Research; labor markets analysis; workforce data and metrics

Program Director

John Schiavone has been involved with transit bus maintenance and technology for nearly 40 years.  He served on the APTA staff, authored several Transportation Research Board studies, and is now working with the Center to advance front-line worker training and apprenticeships.

Expertise: Bus Maintenance Training; Registered Apprenticeships; ZEB/BEB Training; Integrating Training in Fleet Procurement

Communications Associate

Sudan Smith joined our Communications Team in 2023, bringing her expertise and experience in marketing, content creation, social media management, platforms, and strategies gained in her studies and through her private and public sector work. She earned her associate degree in communications with honors from Montgomery College and her bachelor’s in communications with a public relations concentration with honors from Bowie State University.

Expertise: Communications, Social Media

Senior Communications Specialist

David brings to the Center expertise established through almost two decades of experience in labor, transit, legislative, and communications work at local, regional, and national levels. Underlying that expertise is his commitment to helping to improve the lives of working people. At the Center, David leads communications and the development of creative and innovative ways to amplify the center’s commitment to transportation that helps improve the lives of working people. David has a B.A. in political science from Morehouse College and a J.D. from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

Expertise: Communication Strategies; Social Media Campaigns;

Director of Finance

Liz has extensive experience managing federal grants and an in-depth knowledge of the Uniform Guidance and other federal administrative/fiscal requirements developed through her 30 years of experience in the public accounting and non-profit sectors.  Liz has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Liz joined the Center in 2008.

Deputy Director

Xinge Wang is the Center’s Deputy Director and one of this country’s leading experts on workforce demand, training capacity, and future projections of workforce needs.  In 2015, Xinge led the joint research effort of US Department of Transportation, Education and Labor to identify the future workforce needs to strengthen skills training and career pathways of the transportation industry. She has been the key researcher and co-author on many projects funded by US DOT and the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) focusing on transit workforce development. She has also managed the National Training Consortiums for Rail Car, Signals, Elevator/Escalator, and Traction Power Maintenance, developing standards-based training curriculum for frontline technicians. Under the DOL Transit Apprenticeship Initiative, she works with transit agencies and their local unions on developing and implementing apprenticeship programs for transit operations and maintenance occupations.

Expertise: Labor Market Analysis; Workforce Data and Metrics; Training ROI; Rail Training; ZEB/BEB; Frontline Worker Safety and Health

Office Manager

In addition to performing typical office management functions, Joyce coordinates travel and logistics for the Center’s national committees. She joined the Center after serving as Office Manager at the Trust for Public Land.