Avital Barnea is a member of Eno’s Board of Regents and Senior Executive Officer, Multimodal Integrated Planning at LA Metro. Formerly, she served as Deputy Secretary for Transportation Planning at the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a position to which she was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Avital serves in a key advisory role to the CalSTA Secretary on transportation planning, including sustainability, mass transit, rail, ports, and freight. She also serves as CalSTA’s Equity Manager, providing leadership on equity issues to CalSTA’s eight departments, boards, commissions, and staff of 40,000 employees.

Prior to her appointment at CalSTA, Avital was the Program Manager for Freight at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Before joining AASHTO, Avital worked as a Policy Analyst & Grants Manager in the Office of the Secretary at the US Department of Transportation and as a Community Planner with the Federal Transit Administration. She first joined the federal workforce as a Presidential Management Fellow and through that program served on the staff of the US Senate Committee on Finance. Avital began her career in transportation working in bus operations for Metro Transit in Minneapolis. Throughout her career she has been active in transportation industry associations, including serving as President of the Washington, DC Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) and as a former Eno Future Leaders Development Conference Fellow.

Avital holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography, both from the University of Minnesota.