Suzi Emmerling

Director of Public Affairs

Suzi Emmerling is the Deputy Chief of Staff for Secretary Anthony Foxx at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Prior to this role, she served for two years as the Department’s Director of Public Affairs and Assistant to the Secretary.  In both roles, she has served as an advisor to Secretary Foxx for all federal transportation issues, including strategic planning to improve safety across all modes of transport and crisis management​. Suzi has served as advisor during the launch of multiple Departmental priorities including: ​reinstating commercial flight service to Cuba; ​Federal Automated Vehicle Policy; the growth of ​the Build America Bureau;​  the launch of the ​Beyond Traffic report at the​ Google complex in Mountain View; ​the success of the​ $40 million Smart City Challenge;​ and Secretary Foxx’s Connecting People to Opportunities initiative, which aims to connect more low-income communities to economic opportunity through transportation planning.

Emmerling has spent over a decade working on political and issue campaigns across the country. Prior to her appointment by President Barack Obama to​ U.S. DOT in 2014, she served on the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee, the 2012 Obama for America Campaign, and the Democratic National Convention Host Committee in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

She has previously served on the communications teams at the Center for American Progress and the BlueGreen Alliance, as a fellow with the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Forum on Migration and Integration, and as the Director of Development at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Suzi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Political Science from the University of California – Los Angeles. She also holds a Certificate in Political Science from L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques at the Université de Bordeaux, France. She resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband Mike and daughter, Inez.