Jalal A. Nafakh

Jalal Nafakh earned his Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate Degrees from the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. He joined Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1988 as a transportation planner. In 1989, he was named the Director of the Transportation Planning Unit and in 2006 was designated Director of Department of Transportation. In 2011, he was named the Chief Transportation Planner at ADA. Jalal has participated in numerous professional activities including the promotion, mobilization and management of major projects. Examples are:

• Riyadh 2030 (State of the City), where he presided over the multi-disciplinary task force formed to predict the future of the city based on trends and external forces and to express the shape of the city policy needed to ensure sustainable growth. This task evolved to produce the most comprehensive urban planning exercise conducted for the City of Arriyadh.
• Arriyadh Metro Project, where he evaluated state-of-the-art technologies, spatial options and explored financial opportunities and challenges. He managed the preliminary design, the production of tender documents for the design-build stage and mobilized the "Project Construction Management" teams. The project evolved to be one of the largest public transportation projects in the world, consisting of 110 miles of driverless metro lines, 84 stations, 23 park and ride facilities, complemented by a citywide comprehensive bus system and supported by a number of enabling projects ( over $30 billion). This project is currently under construction.

Jalal served on or chaired a number of committees and task forces, organized a number of national and international seminars and conferences, lectured at various universities, led a number of research projects and delivered numerous presentations and publications.

Jalal has been a member of the National Civil Engineering Honor Society (Chi Epsilon), the International Honor Society for Operation Research and Management Sciences (OMEGA RHO), UITP (International Association of Public Transport) Metro Committee and is an affiliate member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).