Binya Reja, Transport GP Practice Manager, World Bank

Binyam (Ben) Reja is the Global Practice Manager for the Transport Practice in the Infrastructure Vice Presidency of the World Bank. Mr. Reja oversees the World Bank’s Transport Global Unit’s program focusing on the decarbonization of the transport sector, development of green, resilient, and inclusive mobility and logistics systems, and innovative financial instruments to meet the large financing gap for clean transportation in client countries. He leads a team of technical professionals and experts and directs technical support to operational units in developing innovative and high-impact lending programs and policy dialogue with client countries. Prior to being selected to this position in September 2020, Mr. Reja was the Regional Practice Manager for China, Mongolia, and Central Asia where he oversaw a lending program totaling US$8 billion in these countries and helped in developing new lending programs and policy reforms to support regional connectivity, innovative infrastructure financing, and addressing the impact of climate change on transport in these countries. Mr. Reja holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Irvine, and attended the Executive Education program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Joanna Moody, LUTP Program Manager, World Bank

Joanna Moody is an urban transport and climate change specialist working with the Transport Global Knowledge and Expertise Unit. Joanna serves as the program manager for the Leaders in Urban Transport Planning (LUTP) program, leading fundraising and business development efforts, coordinating the development of new teaching materials, and collaborating with operational teams to deliver interactive capacity-building workshops for urban transport policymakers. She also supports a broad range of knowledge activities on transport decarbonization, including data and analytic support for Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs). Before joining the World Bank, Joanna worked as the Research Program Manager for the MIT Energy Initiative’s Mobility Systems Center: an industry-funded research consortium focused on the interaction between passenger and goods transport, energy consumption, and climate change. Joanna has a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yoomin Lee, Junior Professional Officer, World Bank

Yoomin is a Junior Professional Officer at the World Bank working in the Transport GP Global unit. She serves as a Transport focal point across the region for the Bank’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR), which is a core country analytical product that aims to analyze the interplay between each country’s development goals and climate action to get the best of development and climate action simultaneously. Also, she has been developing several green hydrogen bunker fuel infrastructure country engagement projects and mainstreaming climate considerations in the World Bank’s project portfolio in East Africa. She holds a master’s degree in Public Policy and a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and international studies (double major).

Laura Piovesan, LUTP Program Assistant,World Bank

Laura is a Consultant in the Transport Global Knowledge and Expertise Unit at the World Bank. She has been working for LUTP for the past 6 years contributing to the planning of sessions, fundraising, and drafting of study content for the program. Before joining the World Bank, Laura worked as an analyst in the financial compliance service sector. Laura holds a B.A. in Business Administration with a major in Finance and Master of Science in Finance from George Washington University.

Keeyeon Hwang, Professor, Department of Urban Design and Planning Honhik University

Mr. Keeyeon Hwang is currently a Professor of Department of Urban Design and Planning ( as well as a member of the national academy of Engineering of Korea), and was a vice chancellor and the dean of college of the engineering at Hongik University located in Seoul. He served 3 year from 2008 to 2011 as the president of Korea Transport Institute (KOTI), which is a central government research arm in land transport, aviation, and logistics. During his presidentship, KOTI was awarded “the Best Research Institute” prize for three consecutive years from National Research Council for Economies, Humanities , and Social Science under the Prime minister’s office. Since 2005 he had been teaching transportation planning and Smart Mobility in Hongik University. Before joining the university, he was a senior research fellow and the Director of the Research Center of Cheonggyecheon stream restoration at Seoul Institute, the think-tank organization for Seoul Metropolitan Government. He was in charge of developing the masterplan of Cheonggyecheon restoration and CBD redevelopment. During his stay at SDI for 13 years, he had been involved in introducing transportation demand management schemes and making better public transportation system in Seoul. He was at the forefront to implement the Seoul’s first congestion pricing scheme at Namsan tunnel located inside the downtown Seoul in 1996, and proposed basic design of bus rapid transit system now under implementation since 2005, and Han river renaissance project. He received his B.A. in public policy from Yonsei University in Seoul, Master of Science in Planning from University of Oregon and Ph.D. in urban and transportation planning from University of Southern California in the US. He is the author of 130 professional journal articles, wrote 5 books concerning Transportation Demand Management, and was awarded “the National Medal of Honor” in 2005 from the Korean Government.

Jee-Sun Lee, Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank

Jee-Sun is a Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank working on modernizing and decarbonizing the freight and logistics sector, city logistics, and e-logistics mainly in India and Bangladesh. Before joining the World Bank, she was a Research Fellow in the department of Logistics Research at the KOTI (Korea Transport Institute) in Korea. She had worked at KOTI since 2011 and her main tasks lay in developing the policy directions for trucking market and urban freight in Korea. Her major is transport geography and regional science: she holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Seoul National University in Korea.

Young-Jong, KWON Ex-Senior Research Fellow of Korea Transport Institute

Young-Jong KWON is currently a part-time instructor at Seoul National University of Science & Technology after 23 years of research at the Korea Transport Institute since 1997. During the research period, he also has lectured at several Universities for more than 15 years. He has been interested in the reduction of traffic accident through highway design and also, he is interested in public transport congestion ease and sustainable development. He has been involved in the research on KTX Economic Development at KOTI for more than 5 years. He also has been involved in the field of transport connectivity and transport system f0r more than 5 years. He is very interested in improving transport infrastructure and cultivating human resources for national economic development in developing countries through Knowledge sharing program (KSP) of Korea. It is because the transport infrastructure improvement and trained human resources have contributed to national economic development in Korea. He received his B.A in Geography from Kyongpook National University, Master of Science in Urban Planning from Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Seoul National University and PH.D. in Transport and Urban Planning in Texas A&M University.

Mira Morad, Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank

Mira Morad is a Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank based in Beirut, Lebanon, and working for the Mashreq region. She mainly focuses on Lebanon and Jordan, working on an array of transport projects and technical assistances including public transport, economic corridors, roads rehabilitation, asset management and others, with a focus on private capital mobilization and Public-Private Partnerships. Mira has over 10 years’ experience in the transport sector, working for the Middle East Region, East Europe, and Central Asia. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mira was working for a private sector engineering company based in Paris, as a country manager for Kazakhstan. Mira holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters’ degree in International Projects Management from the French business school École Supérieur de Commerce de Paris, and she is a certified Projects Management Professional from the Project Management Institute.

Susan Lim, Senior Transport Specialist, The World Bank

Susan is a Senior Transport Specialist based in Cairo, Egypt working with the transport team on rail, trade and logistics, and urban transport projects and studies in Egypt. Susan has over 20 years of experience in the transport sector, from being a transport analyst building travel demand and micro-simulation models, to working in the New York City Department of City Planning advocating non-motorized transport, to being a consultant in developing sustainable transport master plans in various cities. Before joining the World Bank in 2021, Susan held transport positions with the Asian Development Bank for 13 years, leading designing and implementing transport projects, including ITS, road, BRT ports, and airport in over 12 countries. Susan holds a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University.

Khaliun Bat-Orig, Transport Analyst, World Bank

Khaliun is a transport Analyst based in Washington, DC working on World Bank’s Mongolia and Laos transport projects, covering urban transport, regional transport connectivity and logistics. In addition, Khaliun is currently leading the urban transport technical assistance activities in Ulaanbaatar, which covers climate resilient urban transport, asset management, capital investment planning, public transport (Mobility-as-a-Service), and intelligent transportation systems topics. Khaliun’s has previously worked on Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, China, and Vietnam transport projects covering urban transport, regional transport and connectivity, aviation and railways. Khaliun’s specialty is in infrastructure regulation and policy, transport funding and financing, and transport investment and asset management. She holds a MPA in Infrastructure Policy from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s degree in International Development and Economics from University of California, San Diego.

Noro Rabefaniraka, Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank

Before relocating to the World Bank Mongolia Office in July 2021, Noro led successfully national and regional transport sector projects in the Pacific and Africa. Current Mongolia Transport portfolio includes a Sustainable Urban Transport Project which encompasses various urban challenges that it tries to address in a holistic manner. Before joining the World Bank, she holds various positions within the national air carrier, Air Madagascar, and was the Director of Air Transport within the Civil Aviation Authority of Madagascar. Noro holds an MBA from Concordia University (Canada) and Master’s degrees in Business law and International Trade (France).

Clemens Portenlaenger, Senior Transport Specialist

Clemens is a Senior Transport Specialist with the East Asia Pacific Transport practice at the World Bank based in Singapore. His areas of focus are advising government stakeholders on urban transport and regional connectivity projects, integrating sustainable multimodal transport planning and strategies. Prior to joining the Bank, he held various engineering and advisory roles in international consultancy corporations where he managed the design and construction supervision of transport infrastructure projects in Germany, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. His coverage includes airports, roads, urban light rail and rapid transit systems. Clemens holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from Darmstadt University of Technology (Germany) and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE London/UK) and a Project Management Professional.

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