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An award highlighting several outstanding YPT members who are making a significant impact in the field of transportation.
SUSAN STEFFENHAGEN, AICP
Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) | YPT Nashville
Susan is the Senior Air Quality Planner at TDOT. In this role, she developed a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Funding Framework to ensure that a diverse mix of projects are awarded each year. There is no singular strategy to improve air quality via transportation, and she values investing in varied projects based on local context.
Susan has been instrumental in developing an alternative fuels program at TDOT and learning how to apply federal transportation funding to electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. She has worked with AASHTO to create a DOT Practitioner Working Group – this is one of the first formal forums for State DOT practitioners implementing EV charging infrastructure to learn from one another and collectively elevate concerns on a national level. As a trained urban planner, she’s particularly passionate about connecting city planning and alternative fuels infrastructure more directly.
She is YPT Nashville’s Vice Chair of Administration and serves on MobilityXX’s Grants and Research Working Group – which is focused on increasing the number of women in the transportation industry by 10% over the next 10 years. Susan is a member of several other professional organizations, and lives in Nashville with her husband, Jonathan, and her cat, Poppy.