Julie Abraham

B.S. Electrical Engineering, WSU

Julie Abraham is the Director of the Office of International Transportation and Trade in the Office of the Secretary of Transportation.  In this position, Ms. Abraham leads the Department’s international transportation and trade program, overseeing multimodal international policy, trade promotion and cross border transportation issues, and managing international technical assistance programs as well as the Department’s representation in bilateral and multilateral international transportation organizations.  She also leads the representation of the Department’s interests in trade negotiations.

For over a year in 2009 and 2010, Ms. Abraham served as the Secretary of Transportation’s representative to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.  As the Transportation Counselor, she advised the U.S. Ambassador about all transportation related matters.  She also provided executive leadership to a team of experts from the Department of Transportation, Department of State, the U.S. military and locally employed Iraqi staff in assisting the Iraqi Ministers of Transportation and of Housing and Construction build capacity in all modes of transportation (aviation, maritime, rail, roads and bridges). 

From 2003 until 2009, and from 2010 until 2011, Ms. Abraham served as the Director of International Policy, Fuel Economy and Consumer Programs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).  In that position, she was responsible for the Department’s domestic regulatory activities in the areas of automobile fuel economy, consumer labeling and theft prevention.  She reformed the structure and standard setting methodology for the 30-year old fuel economy program and then led the setting of standards under the reformed program. 

Ms. Abraham also led NHTSA’s activities relating to the global harmonization of motor vehicle safety regulations and in the late 1990’s, participated in the negotiation of an agreement for the harmonization of vehicle regulations under the auspices of the United Nations.  From 2000 to 2009, she held various leadership positions, including chair of the executive committee for the agreement.  In those positions and as the lead U.S. representative, she successfully steered the adoption of the first global technical regulations, which are saving many lives around the world.

Ms. Abraham was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2005.  She earned her Masters of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Michigan and her Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Wayne State University.  She speaks English, Arabic, and French.