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 NATIONAL EXPERTS
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National Experts
The Volpe Center calls upon its elite corps of National Technical Experts to take lead roles in initiating, developing, and shaping Volpe Center research and technology application programs and other activities that address critical national issues and challenges.
Our National Technical Experts work closely with the Director, Deputy Director, Office Directors, and other senior technical staff to identify emerging transportation technologies and evolving national concerns, conducting analyses and assessments on topics of national significance, and exploring new opportunities for the Volpe Center to participate in their resolution.
At present, there are six National Experts and one Domain Expert at the Volpe Center.
National Experts
Dr. Aviva Brecher,
Safety, Health, and Environment
Office of Environmental Preservation and Systems Modernization
Aviva Brecher, educated as a physicist at MIT and UC-San Diego, has extensive teaching, research, and technical experience in academia, business and government. Her work spanned a broad range of interdisciplinary topics from physics instruction to lunar and planetary exploration and technical consulting.
Dr. Brecher now serves as a national expert in Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE). Her Volpe Center work experience topics includes: risk analysis and risk management; the future global air traffic control environment; safety, health, and environmental effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) for transportation systems and facilities; assessing and managing non-ionizing and ionizing radiation exposure risk in transportation, such as an update of the FAA's Radiation Safety Program (RSP) Occupational Safety and Health policy; outreach events on transportation health effects and risk tradeoffs; safety analysis and regulatory development for maglev and high-speed rail; electromagnetic interference (EMI) prevention/mitigation in advanced transportation, such as GPS-based navigation and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) collision radars; strategic transportation research planning, technology-based transportation forecasts; and innovation and technology transfer issues for outreach efforts and policy support, such as defense conversion opportunities in transportation; assessing advanced materials R&D; for transportation applications and for physical infrastructure renewal; and technologies to measure and control the environmental impacts of transportation.
Dr. Kim Cardosi,
Aviation Human Factors
Office of Safety and Security
Kim Cardosi, a fifteen-year Volpe Center veteran, received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Brown University in 1985. She is the Volpe Center's national expert in aviation human factors.
Dr. Cardosi, a certified pilot since 1990, has worked principally in aviation human factors at the Volpe Center. She has conducted extensive research in controller-pilot voice communications and has provided human factors support to many Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs, including STARS, Data Link, TCAS, and Conflict Resolution Advisory (CRA). Dr. Cardosi is currently the Volpe Center human factors lead on the AATT (Advanced Air Transport Technology) program and provides human factors support to the FAA's Office of the Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor for Human Factors. This support includes conducting research on the use of color on air traffic control (ATC) displays and developing a booklet for pilots and air traffic controllers on preventing runway incursions. Dr. Cardosi is the author of many publications in ATC human factors, including Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of Air Traffic Control Systems and serves on the board of directors of the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA).
Dr. John Hopkins,
Transportation-Technology Policy Analysis
Office of Strategic Programs and Resources
Dr. John Hopkins, educated as a physicist at Amherst College and Harvard University, joined the NASA Electronics Research Center in Cambridge, Mass., in 1966, and remained there when that facility - which would eventually be named the Volpe Center - was transferred to U.S. DOT in 1970. Since 1989, he has served as a national expert in transportation-technology policy analysis.
Hopkins's work since joining DOT has included a wide range of projects addressing technological, operational and economic aspects of transportation in virtually all modes, as well as the development of management information systems. He has served at a senior technical level variously as a physicist, general engineer, supervisory computer specialist, currently, as an operations research analyst. In addition to his extensive writings, Dr. Hopkins has authored or co-authored four patents.
Dr. Wassim George Najm,
Intelligent Vehicles - Crash Avoidance
Office of Safety and Security
Wassim Najm received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in 1990. He serves as a national expert in intelligent vehicles and crash avoidance at the Volpe Center.
Dr. Najm has worked primarily in the area of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)/Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) and crash avoidance of motor vehicles. He has developed plans, managed teams, and technically led these teams to execute numerous projects in technology assessment, crash problem analysis and development of ITS countermeasure concepts, interactive pre-crash analysis modeling software, estimation of safety benefits, and evaluation of crash avoidance systems. He has devised for the U.S. DOT guidelines for the independent evaluation of advanced crash avoidance technologies in field operational tests; played a key role in the development of the IVI business plan; served on a national expert panel, developed, and applied novel engineering-based methodologies to predict the safety benefits of future advanced automotive crash avoidance systems; and introduced new techniques to analyze crash data from national databases to better understand pre-crash scenarios and crash contributing factors. Dr. Najm has also served as the U.S. DOT program co-manager in a cooperative agreement with a private consortium under the Technology Reinvestment Project, which successfully accelerated the commercialization of uncooled infrared sensors by creating viable multi-use products such as automotive night vision systems and handheld cameras for search and rescue, and security applications.
Dr. Don Pickrell,
Economics
Office of System and Economic Assessment
Don Pickrell is the Volpe Center's Chief Economist; he is also a lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at MIT. He received his undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics from the University of California at San Diego, and master's and Ph.D. degrees in urban planning from UCLA.
Prior to joining the Department of Transportation, Dr. Pickrell taught economics, transportation planning, and government regulation at Harvard University. He has authored over 100 published papers and research reports on various topics in transportation planning and policy, including transportation pricing, transit planning and finance, airline marketing and competition, travel demand forecasting, infrastructure investment and finance, and the relationships of travel behavior to land use, urban air quality, and potential climate change.
Richard Wright,
Traffic Management and Information Systems
Office of Traffic and Operations Management
Dick Wright, who received a master's degree from Tufts University, is the Volpe Center's national expert on Traffic Management and Information Systems. He has worked at the Volpe Center since its inception - indeed, he was a worker at the NASA Electronics Research Center when that facility, to become the Volpe Center, was transferred to U.S. DOT.
Mr. Wright is a consultant to the Volpe Center, U.S. DOT and the technical transportation community on technical and systems issues related to the design, development, and implementation of traffic management systems and their automation. He is also involved with the exploration of new areas of application of Traffic Management technology and the opening of research opportunities for the Volpe Center. Previously, Mr. Wright was Chief of the Automation Application Division at the Volpe Center, a position he held from 1991 to 1998. The Division has primary responsibility for the FAA's Enhanced (Air) Traffic Management System (ETMS), which the FAA uses for strategic air traffic control. Mr. Wright has worked in a wide variety of technical positions, including Vessel Traffic System (VTS) simulation and engineering and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system design and simulation.
Domain Expert
Anya A. Carroll,
Grade Crossing Safety
Office of Safety and Security
Ms. Anya A. Carroll, a civil engineer and research scientist at the Center for 25 years, is a Domain Expert in Surface Transportation Operations. She is recognized as an international authority on safety issues related to highway and rail operations. For 15 years, Ms. Carroll has led the Center's efforts to support the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and other modal agencies in finding ways to reduce the number of collisions between trains and road vehicles and the resulting deaths and injuries.
Ms. Carroll has guided the Center in support of numerous legislative efforts by the FRA including active signal systems inspection, maintenance and testing, locomotive and freight car conspicuity, and railroad horns systems. Evaluations of innovative technologies are currently underway to include the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems at highway-rail intersections as well as obstacle and intrusion detection technologies for railroad infrastructure security.
Ms. Carroll has played a significant role in national and international symposia, workshops and seminars that have brought together academia, railroad industry experts and stakeholders from different modalities and nationalities in the area of rail safety research. Ms. Carroll is the author of numerous papers and reports in the area of rail safety and presides over the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board's Committee on Highway Rail Grade Crossings, AHB60. She also mentors and provides technical leadership to multidisciplinary teams conducting analytic and experimental research.
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U.S. Department of Transportation