Maria Cahill, AICP, Joins the UFTI as New Transportation Technology Transfer (T2) Center Director

The UFTI and the T2 Center are excited to announce that, after extensive interviews and a stringent screening process, Maria A. Cahill, AICP will take the position as Center Director in April 2016.

Cahill earned her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida, as well as her M.A. in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on community planning, growth management and concurrency.  She started her career as a local planner with Monroe County and later managed the Florida Keys Area of Critical State Concern program prior to moving to Florida’s Capital City, Tallahassee.

During her time with the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), Cahill assisted in legislation, policy and rule development, administrative hearings and legal proceedings as an expert witness, and administered key growth management programs, including the Comprehensive Plan Review and Developments of Regional Impact (DRI) programs.  She provided staff support to the Wekiva Basin Area Coordinating Committee and assisted several counties in Florida implement their school concurrency programs.

Most recently Cahill served as Senior Policy Analyst in the areas of Future Corridors, the Florida Transportation Plan, Growth Management and Climate Adaptation in the Office of Policy Planning with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). She specialized in policy planning including legislative support, regional and sector planning, transportation concurrency, growth management reviews, coordination with Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), climate trends and related research.

She served as project manager in research that developed a sketch planning tool to identify potentially vulnerability transportation infrastructure to sea level rise and best practices for multimodal transportation element of local comprehensive plans.  She has also provided staff support to the East Central Florida Corridors Task Force, the Proportionate Share Mitigation Study, was a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) steering committee member, and assisted in the development of the 2009 Joint Report on the Mobility Fee Methodology Study. She serves on the Florida Greenbook Committee, FDOT’s Airport Sustainability Committee and a study to assess the use of mobility fees for transit.

Currently, Cahill is an active member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), serves on the American Planning Association’s (APA) Florida Chapter, Sustainability Committee and is a member of the Executive Committee of UF’s Department of Urban & Regional Planning Advisory Board.  She is a qualified expert in growth management and comprehensive planning, with nearly 30 years of professional experience.

The T2 Center will benefit greatly from her broad understanding of state and federal planning requirements, funding sources and their requirements, and she hopes to apply her passion for transportation planning to prepare Florida for its brightest and safest future. She is eager to begin work on realizing her vision to lead the T2 Center into prominence as a vital element of the University of Florida Transportation Institute.

Welcome Maria!