Mariia Zimmerman serves as the Director of Rail and Public Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She brings to this role her 30 years of transportation industry experience working in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Zimmerman most recently served as the Founder and Principal of MZ Strategies, LLC, a Richmond-based planning and policy firm, where she assisted dozens of states, regions and organizations across the country to adopt transit-oriented development policies and implement transportation projects and plans that improve transportation mobility and access. Over her career, she has been involved in a number of transportation planning projects across the Commonwealth.  

Mariia previously held executive positions at the U.S. Department of Transportation where she was a senior member of Secretary Buttigieg’s leadership team overseeing implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. She served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy and was a Co-Director of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Implementation Team. In these roles, she managed several major discretionary grant and technical assistance programs and oversaw policies and programs advanced by the Federal Transit Administration and Federal Railroad Administration to allocate historic federal funding to expand rail and public transportation service in urban and rural communities. 

Prior to launching MZ Strategies and her time at USDOT, Mariia served as Deputy Director of Sustainable Housing and Communities at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and as Vice President for Policy with Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit Oriented Development. She co-founded the national non-profit, Transportation for America, and worked for several years on capitol hill for Congressman Earl Blumenauer. Mariia began her public service at the Federal Transit Administration during the Clinton Administration after working for transportation planning and engineering firms in her home state of Minnesota. She and her husband have raised their family in Virginia.

Mariia has served on numerous local and national boards and commissions including the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, the Arlington Transportation Commission, and the Shared Use Mobility Center, among others. She holds advanced degrees from Penn State and the University of Minnesota and has been a Visiting Fellow with Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute.