Federal Government Honoree

Dawn Tucker-Thomas

University Grants Manager, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, U.S. Department of Transportation

Dawn Tucker-Thomas currently serves as a University Grants Manager in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She seeks to ensure that surface transportation research grants, awarded to universities, promote advanced, innovative solutions and technologies that accelerate transportation technology and deployment. For a decade, she has sought to strengthen the capacity of Historically Black Colleges & Universities and minorityserving institutions participation in the department’s University Transportation Centers Program, a $75 million per annum competitive research grant program. She also has championed eliminating barriers, promoting opportunities for women and minorities, and supporting the department’s diversity, equity and inclusion goals as part of the program’s workforce development component. She recently worked in the Office of Public Engagement on a detailed assignment with the Transportation Secretary’s Senior Advisors focusing on coordinating transportation equity and related stakeholder engagements as part of a comprehensive strategy. Ms. Tucker-Thomas has almost thirty years of experience in various transportation areas, from transportation planning, aviation policy and rulemaking, airport operations, air carrier management, aircraft-air traffic control integration research, transportation research and analysis and airport and air carrier compliance and enforcement. In addition to her transportation career, Ms. Tucker-Thomas dedicates much of her time volunteering in her community. She currently serves on the Educational and Charitable Foundation’s Board of Directors and is an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Lambda Kappa Omega Chapter. She actively participates in Alfred Street Baptist Church activities and was recently installed as an officer. Ms. Tucker-Thomas received an undergraduate degree in Airway Science from Hampton University, a graduate degree in Transportation from Morgan State University, and a law degree from Concord Law School. She is a former African American Federal Executive Association Fellow and Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellow.