Barbara Sula

Barbara Sula Braga is an architect and urban planner with professional experience across the private and public sectors. As Director of Planning in Santo André for the Programa de Mobilidade Urbana Sustentável, financed by the IDB, she led the implementation of strategic road safety plans, coordinated gender initiatives within the transport sector, and oversaw major public infrastructure works, focusing on urban connectivity and safety through planning grounded in data and international cooperation. The role taught her that innovative solutions only work when the public policy, technical capacity, and financing instruments are in place to sustain them.

Barbara is currently pursuing a Master in City Planning at MIT DUSP, where she studies public policy and financing mechanisms in Latin America, with a focus on urban mobility and infrastructure. Most recently, she worked with ITDP México on development around stations of the new Tren México passenger rail line, examining how land value capture can finance investment in small and medium municipalities. Her work connects sustainable mobility solutions to policies that function on the ground, and asks how innovation can be made viable within the structures and resources a city already has.