Robert Puentes

As incoming president and Chief Executive Officer of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Robert Puentes brings decades of experience at the intersection of land use, infrastructure, and metropolitan policy. He most recently served as vice president and director of Metro at the Brookings Institution, where he led efforts to help cities and regions navigate economic, demographic, and environmental change. Before returning to Brookings, Puentes was president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation and earlier a senior fellow at Brookings overseeing its research on metropolitan growth dynamics. His work has consistently focused on helping local leaders deploy evidence‑based strategies to expand mobility, strengthen climate resilience, and build more prosperous and inclusive communities. 

Puentes has contributed his expertise to a wide range of national, regional, and local boards and advisory bodies, including service as chair of the Planning Commission in Falls Church, Virginia. He has held board leadership or advisory roles with the Federal Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity; Jobs to Move America; United for Infrastructure; the Shared‑Use Mobility Center; the Coalition for Smarter Growth; and the New York MTA Reinvention Commission, among others. A frequent speaker to civic, business, and policy audiences, he is a regular contributor to major media outlets and has testified before multiple Congressional committees on issues central to metropolitan development, infrastructure, and equitable growth. 

Puentes holds a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Virginia, where he served on the School of Architecture’s alumni advisory board. He has been an affiliated professor at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and an instructor at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. His academic and professional work reflects a long‑standing commitment to strengthening the fields of land‑use planning, infrastructure policy, and metropolitan governance, and to developing the next generation of leaders in those areas.