ITE-ANZ Executive Board 2019

The Executive Board of the ITEANZ comprises volunteers from the Transport industry throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Nick Szwed

President

Nick Szwed

Nick is an experienced Road Safety and Sustainable Transport Consultant. He is skilled in Traffic Engineering, Road Safety Audit, Feasibility Studies, Economic Evaluation, Sustainable Transport and Transport Planning. He qualified with a BE(Civil) and MEngSc from the University of Melbourne and has worked in the road safety and traffic engineering field for over 40 years. Much of this has been at VicRoads and its predecessors.

He is currently semi-retired and occasionally provides consulting services in the areas of traffic engineering, road safety and sustainable transport to Local Government, VicRoads and Universities.

Nick joined the ITE-ANZ Executive Board in 2009 and was Secretary from 2010 to 2013. He was has been President since 2014. He is currently focussing on nurturing student and young professional participation in ITE related activities.

Laura Aston

Vice President

Laura Aston BW

Laura is undertaking her PhD as part of the Sustainable and Effective Public Transport Graduate Research Industry Partnership, through Monash University’s Public Transport Research Group. Her research is focused on building evidence to better understand and leverage the relationship between the built environment and transit ridership. She also works as a Public Transport Planner at Transport for Victoria.

Laura completed her bachelor of Environmental Engineering, as well as a Bachelor of Arts at Monash University. Having previously worked as a sustainability consultant prior to moving into transportation and land use planning, Laura is interested in the role of public transport in providing sustainable and equitable mobility.

Laura is a founding member of the Transport Engineer’s at Monash Committee, a Student Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. She sits on the international Student Membership Committee of ITE, which has enabled her to leverage insights from international student initiatives and apply them to the Australia and New Zealand Chapter.

Sam Linke

Vice President

Sam Linke photo

Sam Linke is a project manager and pedestrian planner based in Melbourne responsible for delivering multi-disciplinary transport sector projects, with a focus on pedestrian and crowd planning in rail, transport interchange, and mixed-use and urban environments.

Sam has recently relocated back to Melbourne from Kuala Lumpur, where she was based for two years delivering transport projects for the public and private sectors across South East Asia and leading the Transport Planning team. Sam also has experience in business process and strategic consulting for infrastructure projects, programmes, and organisations. 

David Nash

Secretary​

David Nash

David has over 30 years experience in traffic and transport engineering through his work at VicRoads. David left VicRoads in 2012 and formed a consulting firm called Traffinity. David’s main interests are traffic control devices – traffic signals, signs, markings and street lighting. His last position at VicRoads was Manager-Road and Traffic Standards where he was responsible for policy, standards and guidelines for all manner of traffic management issues.

He is currently lecturing at Swinburne University in Transport Engineering and undertaking many varied projects around the country.

David joined the Board in 2012 and has enjoyed being able to contribute more time to the continued development of the profession.

Daniel Gaschk

Assistant secretary

Daniel Gaschk BW

Daniel graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2013 with a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours in Civil). Daniel has experience in the field of traffic engineering and road safety, having been involved in a variety of traffic and transport related projects at Trafficworks Pty Ltd after joining the company in 2016. Previously, he gained experience in project management as National Asset Coordinator for Coles Services over two years.

Daniel joined the board in 2018 after his involvement in presenting at the ITE Transport Engineer Careers seminar and is excited to contribute further to the field of Transport Engineering.

Eric Ye

Treasurer

Eric Ye

Eric graduated from The University of Sydney in 2017 with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and Bachelor of Commerce (Finance). He is currently working as a traffic engineer at ptc., having joined the company back in the beginning of 2017. Eric has experience in conducting traffic surveys, data analysis, traffic modelling, and preparing traffic impact assessments and traffic management plans for a range of private developers and government authorities.

Eric joined the ITE-ANZ Executive Board after being awarded the GHD Undergraduate Student Award in 2017 for his honours thesis, “Lane Distribution Optimisation of Autonomous Vehicles for Highway Congestion Control”.

Don McKenzie

Executive Board Member and ITE Global District Director

don

Don is the Group Manager (Northern) of Stantec’s transportation business based in in Auckland, NZ. Originally from Canterbury, Don has been involved in transportation engineering consultancy for the past 25 years spanning a range of project-based commissions in both public and private development sector.  He regularly appears as an expert witness in Council and Environment Court cases, and has contributed to the transportation professional in a range of roles. Don is a father of two teenage children and is married to Catherine.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Canterbury and has over 25 years of professional experience in the traffic engineering profession in New Zealand. He has been a member of ITE since 2003, is a Fellow of ITE, the current Global District Director of ITE since 2015 and has been active within the EngineeringNZ Transportation Group in New Zealand, serving on both Branch and National Committees between 2002 and 2007.

 

Marianne Richards

Executive Board Member

Marianne Richards

Marianne retired from the Victorian Public Service in 2016 after a career of 38 years in the public sector in Victoria and South Australia. She has extensive knowledge and experience in port, airport and freight network planning and development issues across all levels of Australian governments. Marianne’s interests include application of transport and land use planning policy and development frameworks, processes and initiatives across economic, social and environmental issues; and implementing practical outcomes in land use planning policy frameworks for the long term sustainability of airports, ports and freight networks. Marianne participated in the development of national and state aviation, port and freight network strategies.

Marianne has a Bachelor of Arts (Monash University), a Graduate Diploma of Town Planning (South Australian Institute of Technology) and a Graduate Certificate of Business Administration (Mt Eliza Business School).

Sara Moridpour

Executive Board Member

Sara Moridpour

Sara holds a bachelor of civil engineering and received her masters and PhD degrees in transportation and traffic engineering. She has 15 years of work and research experience in the field of traffic and transportation. She has been working in the School of Engineering at RMIT University, from 2010.

Sara is highly engaged in a range of research and professional activities within and beyond RMIT. She has published numerous journal papers, and presented in many prestigious conferences in traffic/transport engineering. She has served as technical and organising committee member of different conferences and editorial board member of journals. She has been invited to speak at traffic/transport conferences, workshops and symposiums.

Sarah Zhang

Executive Board Member

Zhang, Sarah_248

Sarah is a passionate transport planning consultant who loves to help her clients find solutions. She specialises in transport and pedestrian planning, with project experience encompassing transit stations, arts and culture, stadia, and commercial buildings. She has worked on a range of high profile public and private sector projects in Melbourne, Sydney and New York. Sarah’s international reach and experience in transport and pedestrian planning is due to her vast travelling experience across five continents, and living experience in three continents.

Sarah is currently the Chair of Women in Engineering, Sydney. She is the recipient of the 2018 Institution of Transportation Engineer’s Emerging Professional Award for ANZ, the 2017 Engineers Australia Young Professional Engineer Award for NSW, a pedestrian panellist for the Sydney Olympic Park Design Review Panel, and the pedestrian representative in City of Sydney’s Local Pedestrian, Cycling and Traffic Calming Committee.

Anwar Syed

Executive Board Member

Anwar Syed

Anwar Syed is an Associate in SMEC based in Melbourne, Australia. He has over 14 years of experience in the areas of traffic engineering and modelling, gained living and/or working in the United Kingdom, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and now in Australia.

Anwar has wide experience both local and international in the areas of traffic engineering, planning and management, including strategic and micro simulation traffic modelling, data analytics, concept design and feasibility studies, traffic signal assessments; and responsible for delivering multi-disciplinary transport sector projects nationally, with a focus on traffic and pedestrian modelling.

Anwar has been an active member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) since 2001. He is a Chartered Engineer and member of Engineers Australia. Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland and International Professional Engineer in APEC Countries, Grade A Engineer in Middle East.

Daniel Przychodzki

Executive Board Member

staff-daniel

Daniel Przychodzki is the Team Leader – Transport at the City of Greater Dandenong, Victoria. With over 15 years of experience working as a professional Engineer, including senior roles within RACV, VicRoads and Local Government, Daniels skills broadly cover Traffic and Transport Management, Road Safety, Strategic Transport Planning and Project Management.

Daniel first joined the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) as a Student Member in 1998, and became an Associate Member not long after he graduated in 1999. Now a Member of ITE, he has held a position on the ITE Australian and New Zealand Section Executive Board since 2001. Occupying the position as Section Secretary in 2004 and 2005, Vice President in 2006, and President in 2007 through to 2009.

John Smelt

Executive Board Member

staff-john

John has enjoyed nearly 40 years of professional activity in transport planning, traffic engineering and strategic land use planning. He worked at VicRoads and its predecessor organisations for over 26 years in the areas of: Traffic engineering, planning and management, including traffic signal systems planning; Transport planning; Road design and planning; Traffic and transport data analysis and modelling; and Business improvement projects.

He also worked at the Victoria Ministry of Transport on a range of public transport and road network planning projects for two years from 1982 to 1984.

John left VicRoads in 2001 to contribute to strategic land use planning in the Victorian Government’s planning agency. This involved: Regional and rural strategic planning; Land supply assessment; Demographic assessment; Transport planning; Activity centre planning in metropolitan and regional areas.

In late 2012, he retired from the regular workforce, but remains keen to be involved in transport and land use activities and professional development through organisations such as ITE.

As well as an ongoing interest in all aspects of transport, John is particularly passionate about:

  • Practical integration of transport and land use
  • New ideas to build great cities and regions for people
  • Transport in regional and rural areas
  • Communications technology to offer alternatives to travel
  • Good data and evaluation techniques to facilitate sound project selection
  • Walking as a mode of transport
  • Continuing development of people in the transport profession
  • Building links between transport and planning professionals

John has a Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering Science from Monash University and a Graduate Diploma of Rural and Regional Land Use from Latrobe University. He joined ITE in 1986 and joined the ANZ Section Executive Board in 2014.

David Rolland

Executive Board Member

David Rolland

David is a Principal Civil Engineer with GHD with over 40 years’ experience in both the private and public sectors. David has extensive experience throughout Australia and internationally in the areas of transport and infrastructure, policy, business cases, planning and delivery. This includes being General Manager Productivity and Technology at the National Transport Commission in Melbourne from 2005 to 2007, working on national transport reform projects. Prior to this David was the Senior Director of the Road User Division of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure in the Northern Territory, Australia. He has held a number of senior management positions in the NT Government. David has also held various engineering positions with VicRoads in Melbourne.

David is a Board Member of the International Forum for Road Transport and Technology. Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers ANZ. Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport, Australia. Member of the Road Engineering Association Asia and Australasia.

Richard Tay

Executive Board Member

Richard_Tay

Professor Richard Tay, CPEng, is the VC Senior Research Fellow in the School of Business IT & Logistics. He has previously taught at University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and Queensland University of Technology as well as universities in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and was a visiting scholar at MIT.

He has completed many research and consultancy projects in road safety, transport economics, and evaluation of transportation programs and policies. He has been invited to serve on many government panels, committees & task forces on road safety in Australia and around the world. He serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals and has been invited to speak at and has chaired technical sessions at many road safety conferences around the world.

He is a Fellow and Life Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transportation.

Ken Hall

Executive Board Member

Ken Hall

Ken has had over 35 years in road transport with specialist knowledge in road safety and traffic management. Following a long career at VicRoads where his last position was Manager Road Safety Engineering, Ken is now consulting. He has a particular interest in assisting the development of sound road transport policy and strategies by utilising the best available information and research and also in developing individuals and organisations to deliver road transport services. In addition to his consulting work Ken has lectured in transport at Victoria University and is a mentor to students in the RMIT MBA program.

Ken has degrees in Civil Engineering and Economics and a Master of Business Qualification (Management).

Kenn Beer

Executive Board Member

Kenn Beer

Kenn is the Principal of Safe System Solutions Pty Ltd – a specialist road safety engineering consultancy that he founded in 2013. Throughout his career, Kenn has worked in delivery, development, planning and program roles within VicRoads. Kenn has also had roles advising governments of the Philippines, California, New Zealand and all States of Australia on complex road safety issues. Kenn is an Austroads project manager, sits on the Victorian Board of the Australasian College of Road Safety and was elected to the Engineers Australia Victorian Board of Engineering in 2010.

Kenn holds a Bachelor of Engineering, is an accredited transport planner, Senior Road Safety Auditor, facilitator and trainer. Kenn won the 2014 ITEANZ Emerging Professional Award and the ITE District 8 Rising Star Award in 2015.

Seyed Arash Fatemi

Executive Board Member

Arash Fatemi (2)

Arash has recently commenced his career as a consultant in the field of transport engineering at Ontoit Pty Ltd. He has been involved in travel demand modelling and is eager to broaden his knowledge in this area of expertise. 

He graduated from Monash University with a Master’s degree in Transport Engineering in 2018. He also has a BEng in Civil Engineering where he was involved in a number of international structural and road design projects.

Prior to joining the ITE-ANZ Executive Board in 2018, he was a member of the Student Leadership Summit committee.

Bishoy Abdelmesseh

Executive Board Member

Bishoy Abdelmesseh

Bishoy is an undergraduate Civil Engineer working as a Transport & Traffic Data Analyst at Austraffic. He is highly engaged in processing and analysing a range of traffic surveys at Austraffic such as Intersection & Pedestrian Turning Movement, Origin-Destination, Travel Time, Parking Studies and Speed & Classification surveys. 

Bishoy is currently completing his final semester of Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) at Victoria University with a current GPA of 6.4 out of 7. He hopes to endeavour further into the field of Transport Engineering. He has joined the ITE-ANZ Executive Board in 2019

Ruw Palapathwala

Executive Board Member

Ruw Palapathwala

Ruw is Vice-President of Young ITE-ANZ (YITE) and will be responsible for working with the President in overseeing and planning the committee’s activities and liaising with all relevant stakeholders to build the committee’s profile.

He works as a Transport Planner at Aurecon’s Melbourne office and has always been motivated to create a better world, believing in their capacity to create better people. Within industry, he was on the planning committee organising the inaugural 2018 ITE-ANZ Student Leadership Summit and is a 2019/20 general committee member on the ITE-ANZ senior board.

Ruw is committed to realising great value delivered to the professionals and students who will engage with the activities and service of this committee. His friendly and approachable demeanour brings a supportive role and he invites anyone with a passion in transport to get involved with YITE.

Matt Bennett

Executive Board Member

Bennett_Matthew

Matt Bennett is a transport planner based in Aurecon’s Melbourne office and is president of the YITE Committee. Starting from a young age, Matt has always been fascinated by all modes of transport and how best to integrate them. His involvement with the ITE began with the Australian first Student Leadership Summit in 2018. As part of the organising committee, Matt took responsibility for the pub trivia styled Traffic Bowl and aided the marketing and communication strategy. As the inaugural president of the YITE Committee, Matt aims to help establish and grow a strong global network with fellow transport enthusiasts.

Cassie Min

Executive Board Member

Cassandra Min

Cassandra Min is a Monash University student currently completing a double degree in Civil Engineering and Architectural Design.

Cassandra’s interests lie in transport and traffic engineering as well as sustainability. She is currently President of Transport Engineers at Monash, a Student Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. In this role, she is involved in the overall strategic planning of the chapter within Monash University, which connects members with other like-minded students and established industry professionals to motivate, empower and encourage the next generation of professionals entering the transport industry. She sits on the International Student Membership Committee of ITE.

Cassandra joined the ITE-ANZ Executive Board in 2018.

Jeyashivraj Parthiban (Jey)

Executive Board Member

JEY PARTHIBAN

I am a 4th year Monash university student pursuing a double degree in Civil Engineering and Economics. I have been involved in the activities of ITE since my 2nd year, when the student chapter at Monash University was set up. The student chapter, called Transport Engineers Monash, was set up to promote transport engineering among students. I served as the ITE liaison in the student committee and later became President of the student chapter, a position I currently hold. I also work at a road safety consultancy called Safe System Solutions as an undergraduate engineer. I’m glad to be involved with the ITEANZ young committee because it provides me the opportunity to meet like-minded students/young professions from different backgrounds and institutions. Moreover, it provides me the opportunity to learn more about the transport profession

Tabitha Yeoh

Communications Officer

Tabitha Yeoh

Tabitha is a Transport Planner at Jacobs. She is part of the Melbourne office’s Transport Planning team. In her role she has developed skills in transport planning, modelling and data analysis; through having worked on a variety of projects involving road, public transport, heavy vehicle, cycling, pedestrian and precinct planning.

Tabitha has a great passion for transport and cities, which she developed while completing her Bachelor of Urban Planning and Design degree from the University of Melbourne and working as a Transport Planner. Tabitha believes that her involvement in the ITE-ANZ  Members Committee will enable her to become more active in the transport industry and contribute towards providing both young professionals and students with more opportunities to network and learn about transport

Ben Thomson

Communications Officer

Ben Thomson-cv-col

Ben is a Traffic Engineer at Ratio Consultants, based in Melbourne Australia, involved in the initial design and planning stage of developing our cities and spaces. Ben has a strong passion for multi-modal networks and how we rebalance the transport equation.

Ben’s initial involvement came through regular attendance at the ITE-ANZ seminars held on a variety of transport topics. Encouraged by the moves made by the ITE-ANZ, Ben is involved for the second year as a mentor in the joint ITE-ANZ and Traffic Engineers Monash (TEM) mentoring program. As a strong social media user, Ben has seen the opportunity to contribute to the ITE-ANZ through the communications role with the Young ITE.