* = members of the executive group
* Mario Alves (Portugal), Associação de Cidadãos Auto-Mobilizados (ACA-M) – www.aca-m.org
Secretary-General IFP
Mário J. Alves has a degree in Civil Engineering and a Master of Science in Transport. He worked at the Centre for Transport Studies of the University of London and the Centre for Urban and Regional Systems of the University of Lisbon. He was executive coordinator of mobility plans and participated in several European projects related to walking and cycling. Recently he worked on a report to critically assess the policies of the Portuguese government to achieve the Kyoto targets. He was part of the International Scientific Programme Committee of the conference Walk21 in Toronto and National Coordinator of the COST Action: Pedestrian Quality Needs. He was advisor for the Mayor of Lisbon and currently advisor for several Portuguese and European institutions. In 2010 he was the co-editor the book “The Walker and the City”. Over the last decade wrote articles and presented numerous papers and seminars on topics related to walking in particular and transport and sustainable mobility in general.
Gustavo Calderón (Colombia), Fundación Colombiana de Peatones – www.peatonescolombia.org
Gustavo is a Civil Engineer, Specialist in Road Design, Transportation and Traffic Engineering. He has a Master Degree in Environmental Administration for Sustainable Development, and Advanced training as a scholar in Japan and Sweden on Tranportation Planing and on Public Transportation and Environment. He is a Consultant, Researcher and Promotor of Sustainable Mobility. Co-founder of the Colombian Foundation of Pedestrians and its President and Executive Director since 1999.
Claudina de Gyves (México), Liga Peatonal – www.ligapeatonal.org
Claudina is an architect based in Oaxaca, a city in southern Mexico. With experience in urban development, mobility, public space, universal accessibility, road safety, as well as citizen participation and advocacy processes, she has collaborated with local governments in Mexican cities in the areas of urban development and mobility. As co-founder and former General Coordinator of Liga Peatonal, she has promoted initiatives that have allowed to influence the formulation of public policies aimed at creating more inclusive and healthy urban environments, facilitating processes and training on walkability to different sectors in cities of Mexico and Latin America, which has made her a leader in the mobility sector. As part of her commitment to defending the right to walk, she has promoted initiatives such as the Charter of Pedestrian Rights, the Adiós Puentes-Antipeatonales campaign (Antipedestrian-Bridges), the collaborative mapping platform Project Sidewalk (EvaluAndo) in collaboration with the University of Washington and Makeability Lab, among others; projects and tools that seek to promote walkability in cities and that have been taken up in various countries. In 2019, she was named by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) as a Remarkable Women in Transport as part of a global group of highly-rated transportation expert women.
Eileen McCarthy(US), America Walks – www.americawalks.com
Eileen McCarthy represents her ward in Washington, DC in the United States on the Pedestrian Advisory Council, which advises the Mayor, City Council and city agencies on pedestrian safety and accessibility. Among other activities, Eileen led the Council’s efforts to support DC’s adoption of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act of 2016, which institutionalized open public access to crash data and the District’s Complete Streets policy, mandated bicycle and pedestrian priority areas, established an aggressive driving law, and created a task force to review major crashes and identify needed engineering and other changes. Eileen also serves as a mentor for the America Walks Walking College. Eileen worked as a lawyer at the US Department of Labor from 1988 until 2013, in a variety of roles and on a variety of subjects. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in 1980 and a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University in 1984.
Silvia Stuchi (Brazil) – www.corridaamiga.org
Treasurer IFP
Environmental manager (University of São Paulo), PhD in Scientific Policy and Technology (State University of Campinas), with internship period at University of Science and Technology, Lille/ France, and visiting Student Researcher at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. In 2018 she started a Post doc in Sustainability (University of São Paulo) with emphasis on active mobility. With 8 years experience in sustainability and climate change projects (CDM and voluntary carbon market projects), and 5 years on pedestrian mobility. Passionate active transportation advocate, she is coordinating the NGO “Corrida Amiga” since 2014 and also developing Como Anda project, in parter with Cidade Ativa, sponsored by iCS, with the goal to map the walking initiatives in Brazil. In June (18), together with other partners, she started a research to evaluate the Impact of “Paulista Aberta” program on Urban Vitality.
* Ben Rossiter (Australia), Victoria Walks – www.victoriawalks.org.au
Vice-President IFP
Ben has been the Executive Officer of Victoria Walks since its inception in 2009. Before taking up this position he was the Manager of Active Transport at VicHealth. He has a background in cross sectoral partnerships, research, policy and program development, community development and health promotion. He has a long interest in walking, sustainable communities and urban environments. The theme of his doctoral dissertation was walking in cities and he has published articles and book chapters on walking and urban experience. He is a member of the Victorian Pedestrian Advisory Council.
Dieter Schwab (Austria), Walk-Space.at – www.Walk-Space.at
Dieter Schwab was born 1959 in Vienna, Austria, where he made a Master degree in Urban and City Planning (Technical University of Vienna). He worked as a member of the staff of the urban planning and development department, traffic planning and regional development section of the Vienna City Administration from 2004 to July 2006. He serves as an expert of the Vienna City Administration regarding pedestrians, head of the pedestrian expert group. As of August 2006, he became expert for TRAFICO Transport Planning Agency. Field of responsibility: Walking pedestrian areas. In January 2007 he founded the Austrian Pedestrian Organisation named “walk-space.at – der oesterreichische Verein fuer FussgaengerInnen”).
* Andy Smith✝ (New Zealand), Living Streets Aotearoa – www.livingstreets.org.nz
Andy Smith brings to the Federation the experience of a software developer for 35 years and the passion of a, now full time, walking advocate. His computer work was in many industries including Insurance, Finance, Fund management, Telecommunications, Animal Health, Uranium Extraction, Brewing and Accounting. ‘When you write software you must first know that industry’. He gained a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computing and Finance at the University of Technology, Sydney in the 1980s.
For the past 15 years Andy in Auckland New Zealand has chosen workplaces and homes so he can walk between them. This created an interest in all things to do with urban walking and when he saw that Living Streets Aotearoa had the same interest, he joined. Retiring from paid work at the age of 53 he retrained for the Not For Profit (NFP) sector and gained a Graduate Diploma in NFP management in 2010. Now he is President of Living Streets Aotearoa, Walk Auckland, Skypath trustee and is involved with other community walking projects.
In July 2021, we heard with great sadness that Andy has died at his home in Auckland. Andy was a wonderful man and true walking champion who will be greatly missed.
Christian Thomas (Switzerland), Fussgängerverein Zürich – www.fussgaengerverein.ch
Christian Thomas has originally studied Architecture at the ETH in Lausanne and in Zurich, and has been engaged in different initiatives on Transport and Ecology, as a consultant for Transport of WWF-Switzerland, as a Founder of the Traffic-Club Switzerland (Verkehrsclub), which is an alternative to the traditional Automobile-Clubs promoting mostly the more ecological forms of mobility. He was Assistant at the Chair of Philosophy of Science, ETH Zurich, where he made his PhD, and he has been working in different research projects. From 2001 to 2015 he has worked for the Swiss Pedestrian Association (Fussverkehr Schweiz), has joined the Swiss Council of Experts on Road Safety for a number of years, and now he is member of the Board of the local Pedestrian Association in Zürich, and a consultant of the “Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety”
Bronwen Thornton () Walk21 – www.walk21.com
As Development Director for Walk21, Bronwen is an international facilitator, trainer and expert on walking and walkable communities. She works with communities and professionals around the world to promote walking and to develop and deliver innovative and practical projects, resources and tools to support more walking. Recent projects include reviewer of the UN/WHO Pedestrian Safety Manual, partner in the European Active Access project, partner in ‘Better by foot in Stuttgart’ and lead on the Making Walking Count data standardisation project and the International Charter for Walking.
She sits on the Advisory Board for Walkscore and the Walk Friendly Ontario Review Team.
Ole Thorson Jorgenson (Spain), Catalunya Camina – www.catalunyacamina.org
Born in Copenhagen in 1941. Civil engineer and Ph.D. from the Politechnical University of Denmark 1964 and Barcelona 1983. Specialised in traffic, transport, road safety and pedestrians. 1967-70 Danish Council of Road Safety Research. 1970-89 Traffic Planning Division, Barcelona Municipality and 1980-89 Head of the Division. 1972 – Director of the Consultant firm INTRA s.l. 1989- 2006 Associated professor at the Politechnical University of Catalonia (Transport). Vice-president of the Spanish Traffic Accident Prevention Association. (since 1984): Board member of the European Federation of Pedestrian Associations (FEPA). President of the International Federation od Pedestrians from 2005 to 2012. Founding member of the board of The Spanish Association for Pedestrian Rights.
* Geert van Waeg (Belgium), johanna.be – www.johanna.be
Born in 1959 in Brussels, Belgium, Geert got his PhD in medical science in Uppsala, Sweden. From the mid 70ies on, he was active around non-motorized road users (mainly cyclists, as local chairman of the “Groene Fietsers” in Brussels) and liveable cities (Brukselbinnenstebuiten). Together with family and friends, he founded the NGO johanna.be, after he lost his daughter when a car crashed into a group of scouts on a hike on a small country road in 2003. Johanna.be supports local grass root initiatives around infrastructure for non-motorized road users in Belgium through advice and visibility of the projects on its website. Defending the fine network of public footpaths and right-of-ways for the generations to come is done both through johanna.be and through the NGO Trage Wegen (slow roads), of which he is a board member. He is an active member of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration, and represented the IFP on many occassions, including at the High Level Ministerial Conferences on Road Safety in Moscow, November 2009 and Brazilia, November 2015.