Alda Metrass

Alda is a freelance Principal Consultant within CPCS’s Francophone West Africa Unit. She is an Infrastructure and Transport Specialist with over 20 years of experience in large infrastructure projects across all five transportation modes (road, public transit, railway, maritime, and aviation) in more than 40 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Asia. Alda worked as a Road Specialist at the European Investment Bank (EIB) before moving to Washington, D.C. to serve as Global Investment Officer at the Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) advisory team of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private sector arm of the World Bank Group (WBG), where, together with her team, she sourced and structured transport projects with Governments for private investment. She also led and supported pre-investment and early-stage project development activities in the public transit, road, port, and logistics and supply chain sectors. Before joining Multi-Lateral Development Banks, she gained a decade of consultancy and academic experience in developed and emerging economies. Alda honed her expertise in strategy, transaction advisory, project feasibility, economic appraisal, demand and revenue forecasting, engineering design, and development of master plans from leading number of toll road and airport transactions and advising public and private project sponsors, investors and lenders, including the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). During her time in academia, she specialized in various other areas of transport planning such as regulation, policy reforms, and universal access to infrastructure, having lectured on Economic Regulation for the IADB, in 2018, and as Invited Professor at the Universidad de Ibagué (Colombia), between 2015 and 2018. She also served as a Board Member of the aviation project SPARA, funded through the EU Northern Periphery and Arctic Program. Alda holds a Licentiate Degree in Civil Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal), a PhD (Hons) in Transportation Systems from the MIT Portugal Program, and executive education in Management from INDEG-ISCTE (Portugal).

• Lecturer of the 1st Edition of the on-line course “Regulación aeroportuaria – Módulo de Regulación Económica” by the Inter-American Development Bank (2018)
• Invited Transport Professor at the University of Ibagué, Colombia (2015 - Present)
• Affiliated researcher of CITTA, Portugal (2013 - Present)
• Institute of Civil Engineers Portugal, Chartered engineer (2006-2013)
• Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Ph.D. Fellowship (2007-2011)
• European Commission, Socrates-Erasmus mobility Grant (2002)
• Invited referee for several journals in the field of transport research.

• Metrass-Mendes, A. (2013), Icelandic tourism profitability and sustainability strategies: The facilitating role of aviation. Akureyri: Icelandic Tourism Research Centre, pp. 86
• Metrass-Mendes, A., De Neufville, R., Costa, A., Oliveira, A. (2013), Comparing air transport policies for small remote communities: U.S.A., Canada, Portugal, Spain and Brazil (Working paper collection “Cátedra Pasqual Maragall”)
• Metrass-Mendes, A. (2011), Air transportation for effective and efficient service to small remote communities - Policy options under regulatory reform. (Doctoral Dissertation). Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
• Metrass-Mendes, A., de Neufville, R. (2011), Air Transportation Policy for small communities: Lessons from the U.S. experience, Journal of Air Transport Studies, Vol. 2, 2, July 2011, pp. 1-27