Frederick Salvucci served as transportation advisor to Boston Mayor Kevin White between 1970 and 1974, and then as Secretary of Transportation of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under Governor Michael Dukakis between 1975 and 1978, and again from 1983 to 1990. In those roles he shaped much of the transportation planning and policy in urban Boston and Massachusetts over the past 20 years.

More recently, he participated in a restructuring of commuter and rapid transit services in Buenos Aires, Argentina; helped review the transportation planning process in U.S. metropolitan areas; and worked on the development of a new transit system for San Juan, Puerto Rico. At MIT, he concentrates on transportation planning and government policy.

Salvucci received a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from MIT. He spent a year at the University of Naples as a Fulbright Scholar from 1964 to 1965, studying the use of transportation investment to stimulate economic development in high poverty regions of Southern Italy.