Alumni Spotlight: Alina Burlacu, Romania

Alumni Spotlight

Dr Alina Burlacu shapes safe road investment frameworks at the World Bank

2015 DRSC alumna Dr Alina Burlacu is a Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank, where she works on making roads safer through large-scale investments and policy reforms. She holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest and is a certified road safety auditor.

“I attended DRSC in 2015, after my PhD in civil engineering, focused on road safety. I already had the technical background, but through DRSC I got exposed to other pillars of road safety. The scholarship really made the difference — the organisers were able to reach out and say ‘Look, we really like your profile, we think you’re good.’”

After attending the course, Alina served as Personal Advisor to the Prime Minister of Romania, where she led the development of the National Road Safety Strategy, its Action Plan, and related legislation. Drawing directly on her DRSC learning, she built cross-government working groups bringing together stakeholders from across disparate ministries to drive coordinated action.

“Seeing lecturers from different institutions — for me that made the big difference. That is also when I realised that it is not necessarily the information that you are sharing that is important, but how you are able to communicate and connect with your audience and make them feel the content that you are sharing. I still remember vividly one of the lecturers saying: ‘You are going back to your country and they are going to tell you no, no and no. And you have to push, push and push. Do not stop — because that is what you have to do.’”

ow at the World Bank, Alina continues to apply this approach to road safety at scale throughout Asia-Pacific, West and Central Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean regions. She has recently developed a framework for road investments in Guyana, ensuring that the Bank guarantees safe connectivity and climate resilience in its infrastructure lending.

Alina credits DRSC with broadening her expertise beyond the technical and equipping her with the skills to influence policy and drive change — from Bucharest to Washington, D.C.