Dr. Jen Nelles is a Senior Research Fellow with the Innovation Caucus and co-director of the Oxford Regions, Innovation, and Enterprise Lab (ORIEL) at Oxford Brookes University Business School. Jen specializes in the areas of innovation and productivity policy, urban and metropolitan governance, regional economic development, infrastructure, and system dynamics with a specific interest in regional governance organizations and their abilities to coordinate policy across jurisdictional boundaries. She is the author of Comparative Metropolitan Policy: Governing Across Boundaries in the Imagined Metropolis (Routledge 2012); and co-author of A Quiet Evolution: The Emergence of Indigenous-Local Intergovernmental Partnerships in Canada (University of Toronto Press 2016); Discovering American Regionalism: An Introduction to Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (Routledge 2018); and Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York (University of Michigan Press 2023).

Peter Rogoff brought an impressive career of transportation leadership to forward the mission of expanding the regional mass transit system for central Puget Sound as Chief Executive Officer of Sound Transit. Rogoff was unanimously selected after a nationwide search and came to Sound Transit in January 2016.

Prior to that, he had served since July 2014 as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy in the U.S. Department of Transportation, the department’s third highest-ranking official. In that role he led the development of policies for the department, generating proposals and guidance regarding legislative, regulatory and safety initiatives. His work spanned all transportation modes, including aviation, highway, rail, transit and maritime transportation.

Starting in May 2009, Rogoff served for five years as President Obama’s Federal Transit Administrator. As the nation’s chief public transit official, Rogoff led the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) through a period of historic change. His administration made record-setting accomplishments and agency-wide process improvements that responded to America’s fast-growing need for expanded public transportation. He negotiated and signed a record number of full funding grant agreements with transit agencies across the nation to expand rail and bus rapid transit infrastructure.

Prior to his FTA appointment, Rogoff served for 22 years on the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee, including 14 years as the Democratic Staff Director of the Transportation Subcommittee, led by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.

In 2010 Rogoff was the first recipient of the Transportation Equity Network’s Rosa Parks Award. He also was awarded the U.S. Coast Guard Distinguished Public Service Award; the Lester P. Lamm Memorial Award for outstanding leadership and dedication to U.S. highway transportation programs; the Dr. and Mrs. William and Budd Bell Award for “tireless advocacy for seniors and people with disabilities;” and the National Chair’s Award from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials.

Rogoff earned his Master of Business Administration degree with honors from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and his Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies at Amherst College. He is married and a father of two.