Theresa M. Impastato is Executive Vice President and Chief Infrastructure Officer at Metro, where she leads one of the nation’s largest multimodal infrastructure organizations. She is responsible for engineering, maintenance, capital delivery, asset management, and the long-term stewardship of the systems that support safe, reliable, and resilient transportation. She leads complex organizations through transformation, aligning people, infrastructure, technology, and strategy to improve organizational performance and deliver long-term value.
Over more than two decades, Theresa has built a distinguished career spanning railroad operations, engineering, infrastructure, safety, and executive leadership. She is recognized for integrating operational discipline with strategic vision to modernize critical infrastructure, strengthen organizational performance, develop high-performing teams, and enhance the safety, reliability, and resilience of transportation systems. Prior to her current role, Theresa served as Metro’s Executive Vice President and Chief Safety Officer, where she led the development and implementation of the agency’s first Safety Management System and advanced enterprise risk management across one of North America’s largest public transportation systems.
Before joining Metro, she served as Deputy Chief Safety Officer at Amtrak, where she led implementation of the railroad’s first Safety Management System and oversaw Federal Railroad Administration safety certification for next-generation high-speed trainsets, major rolling stock procurements, and nationally significant infrastructure programs. Earlier in her career, she held engineering leadership positions at Amtrak and operational leadership roles at NJ TRANSIT’s River LINE, beginning her railroad career as a train dispatcher.
Theresa holds a Doctor of Education from Vanderbilt University, where her research focused on organizational learning, workforce development, and building high-performing organizations capable of meeting the transportation industry’s future workforce needs. She also holds a Master of Public Health from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, a Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and undergraduate and advanced diplomas in Computer Science and Data and Systems Analysis from the University of Oxford.
An active leader within the transportation industry, Theresa serves as a rail system safety and accident investigation instructor for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Safety Institute and contributes to the American Public Transportation Association, the American Association of Railroads, the Transportation Research Board, and the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association. She is also a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, where she supports STEM education and mentors students and early-career professionals exploring careers in science, engineering, and transportation. Through mentoring, teaching, and industry engagement, she is committed to developing future transportation leaders, strengthening the transportation workforce, and building inclusive, high-performing organizations.
Theresa lives in the Hill East neighborhood of Washington, D.C., with her husband and their Great Danes. She is a frequent OBS Line rider.
