PMA’s Hatim Elnueri, Dennis Lucey, Jennifer Bowie, and Shibu Babu attended the 2026 MassDOT Transportation Innovation Conference on May 5–6 at the DCU Center. Hosted annually by the UMass Transportation Center, the sold-out conference brought together transportation professionals from across New England to explore emerging technologies, innovative project delivery strategies, and the future of resilient infrastructure.
The annual conference serves as a forum for transportation practitioners from federal, state, and local agencies, academia, and private industry to exchange ideas, share best practices, and collaborate on innovative approaches to transportation systems and infrastructure management. This year’s program featured discussions on AI and advanced sensing technologies, resilient infrastructure solutions, sustainable materials, and data-driven transportation planning.
PMA exhibited at Booth #115, where the team connected with transportation leaders, industry partners, and public-sector representatives throughout the two-day event. Attendees showed particular interest in PMA’s expertise in project controls, scheduling, estimating, risk management, climate resiliency, and Net Zero initiatives.
Presentation
As part of the conference program, Hatim Elnueri presented alongside Suzie von Bermuth of MassDOT on the topic: Build Before You Bid: Integrating Early Constructability and Schedule Discipline to Improve MassDOT Project Delivery. Their session explored common project delay drivers — including owner and third-party impacts, contractor coordination challenges, and unforeseen field conditions — while outlining proactive mitigation strategies centered on constructability planning, data-driven scheduling, and early stakeholder coordination. Through real-world examples, the presentation demonstrated how integrating strong build strategies with disciplined schedule management can improve predictability, reduce risk, and support more resilient project delivery outcomes.
Takeaways
It was great to connect with transportation professionals from across New England. This conference has highlighted the importance of collaboration, innovation and effective project delivery in addressing today’s infrastructure challenges.
—Dennis Lucey, Executive Director at PMA