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DOT 8-09
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Contact: Sarah Echols
Tel.: (202) 366-4570
Dr. Karlin Toner to Lead Interagency Coordination of NextGen
The Department of Transportation today announced the appointment of Dr. Karlin
Toner to serve as the senior DOT staff advisor to the Secretary and Deputy
Secretary of Transportation concerning the transformation of the air
transportation system. Dr. Toner will also be senior DOT staff liaison between
Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) partnering departments and agencies
and the Office of the Secretary.
Dr. Toner comes to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) on detail from
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Her appointment follows an executive
order signed by President Bush on Nov. 18, 2008 to advance the transformation of
the national air transportation system. The executive order directed DOT to
establish within the Office of the Secretary of Transportation a staff to
support the Secretary as chairman of the interagency Senior Policy Committee
that is overseeing the development of the Next Generation Air Transportation
System (NextGen).
She will work directly under the Secretary of Transportation and coordinate
inter-agency development of the NextGen program that also involves the
departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Commerce, as well as NASA, the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the FAA.
Dr. Toner brings to her new position 15 years of experience at NASA, where she
served from August 2006 to December 2008 as director of airspace systems
programs. She previously held a number of key positions at NASA in aerospace and
aeronautical planning and research. She has doctoral and master’s degrees in
aerospace engineering from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s degree in
applied mathematics from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Toner
manages the NextGen Human Factors group at the FAA.
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