MTSA Technical Advisory Committee

MTSA has been developed in coordination with a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of prominent national leaders with tremendous expertise in the field of road safety. TAC members bring the latest industry perspectives to the program and will be offering periodic guest lectures. They represent behavioral safety programs; infrastructure programs; injury prevention; driver and vehicle services; commercial motor vehicle safety; and private industry.

• Dr. Matts-Åke Belin
  
  

  Dr. Matts-Åke Belin
  Adjunct Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm  

  Dr. Matts-Åke Belin has over 30 years of experience within the Swedish government primarily worked with overall safety policies, strategies and collaboration with different stakeholders. In 2007 – 2009 Dr. Belin worked for World Health Organization in Geneva where he participated in the development of global road safety strategies and global partnerships. Dr. Belin has also chaired the technical committee 3.1 on National Road Safety Policies and Programme, World Road Association and served as the international representative at the US Transportation Research Board (TRB) standing committee ANB 10 Transportation Safety Management. Dr. Belin is also the Swedish delegate in UN Road Safety Collaboration and he has served as national and international senior policy adviser and supported different Vision Zero initiatives around the world. Dr. Belin was also deeply involved in the preparation and organization of 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Stockholm February 2020. Currently, Dr. Belin is Director of Vision Zero Academy at the Swedish Transport Administration. Parallel with his work within the Swedish government, Dr. Belin also has an academic carrier. Dr. Belin has a PhD in public health policy from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He is also affiliated with KTH Royal Technology Institute, in Stockholm, where he is serving as an adjunct professor on traffic safety. Dr. Belin is also responsible for a research program funded by the Swedish Transport Administration, in order to promote research in policy, implementation and innovation within the transport sector with focus on Vision Zero. 

• Dr. Anne Dellinger
  
  

  Dr. Anne Dellinger
  Chief, Injury Prevention Division, Centers for Disease Control  

  Ann M. Dellinger, Ph.D., M.P.H., serves as chief of the Home, Recreation and Transportation Safety Branch of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, at CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). There she oversees the older adult falls, traumatic brain injury, and road safety work of the Center. Dr. Dellinger consults with domestic and international organizations including the U.S. Transportation Research Board, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). She is the recipient of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Awards for Distinguished Service for assistance during the Oklahoma City bombing (1997) and the World Trade Center/Anthrax Investigation Emergency Response Team (2002). She was also the recipient of three NCIPC Director′s Awards as well as Certificates of Commendation from the Federal Executive Board for Outstanding Scientist, and Outstanding Team. 

  Dr. Dellinger received her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of San Diego. She received her Master of Public Health (health promotion) from the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego University and her doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California at Los Angeles. Dr. Dellinger has authored and coauthored more than 100 publications on a variety of topics. 

• Anne Ferro
  
  

  Anne Ferro
  Former CEO (Retired), American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and 
  Former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

  Ferro served as Administrator of the USDOT Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) from 2009 through 2014, and President and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) from 2014 through 2023. Earlier, she served as President and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, and was the first woman to become Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administrator, leading the state agency from 1997 to 2003. Ferro is a long-time advocate for transportation safety and mobility through responsible governance, technology investments and stakeholder collaboration.

  She received a B.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and then served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire, Africa. Upon her return to the U.S., Ferro earned a Master’s in Public Management from the University of Maryland. 

  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-ferro-7709882b8/

   

• Dr. Denver Tolliver
  
  

  Dr. Denver Tolliver
  Director of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, the Mountain Plains Consortium, the interdisciplinary graduate program in Transportation and Logistics, Executive Director of the Transportation Research Forum, and Chairman of the online Transportation Leadership Graduate Certification Program

  In addition to being the director of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Denver Tolliver is the:

  - Director of the Mountajn-Plalns Consortium {MPC)-a multi-university consortium that serves as the University Transportation Center in federal Region 8.

  - Director of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Transportation and Logistics at North Dakota State University.

  - Executive director of the TransoortatIon Research Forum.

  - Chairman of the Transportation Leadership Graduate Certificate Program, a national online education program that involves 13 major universities located throughout the United States, with participation from many others.

  During his career, Tolliver has been awarded more than $20 million in grant funding and has authored and co-authored more than 150 transportation research papers, including reports for federal and state agencies such as the Research and Innovative Technology Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Idaho Transportation Department, the Nebraska Department of Roads, the North Dakota Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and the Washington State Department of Transportation.

   

• Dr. Elizabeth Baker
  
  

  Dr. Elizabeth Baker
  NHTSA Regional Administrator Emeritus

  Elizabeth Baker has more than 40 years as a highway safety professional. Starting out as a driver education teacher, and retiring in 2018 as Regional Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Region 3 Office in Baltimore, Dr. Baker has spent a career developing and promoting programs to save lives. After receiving Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the The Ohio State University, she earned a doctorate from the University of Maryland, where she conducted research on ignition interlocks for DWI offenders. 

  After graduation, she took a position with the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Highway Safety Office. She rose up through the ranks, eventually serving as Director of the office and Maryland’s Highway Safety Coordinator. After 9 years, Dr. Baker accepted the position of Regional Administrator with NHTSA’s Region 3 office, where she remained for 20 years. During her tenure with both the State and Federal agencies, she promoted the philosophy that “people make the program work”, developing the DUI prevention program “Checkpoint Strikeforce”, and actively promoting many other highway safety initiatives. Besides program development and evaluation expertise, Dr. Baker has extensive teaching experience at the college level, as well as through the US Department of Transportation’s Transportation Safety Institute. 

• Lorrie Laing
  
  

  Lorrie Laing
  Principal, Director, National Transportation Safety Practice, Cambridge Systematics, Inc.

  Lorrie Laing, a Principal of Cambridge Systematics and leader of the firm’s Transportation Safety Practice, has 41 years of traffic safety experience. She has worked extensively with stakeholders at the Federal, state, and local levels to plan and implement effective transportation safety programs. As Ohio’s Highway Safety Office Administrator for 10 years, she led the state highway safety office, motorcycle safety education program, and novice driver training program. She managed multidisciplinary teams that conducted problem identification and established performance targets to plan, implement, and evaluate various behavioral traffic safety programs and initiatives. Ms. Laing co-chaired the Governor's Task Force on Impaired Driving and served on the Governor’s Task Force on Ohio Highway Safety, Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) Board of Directors, Traffic Records Coordinating Committee, State DUI Court Policy Committee, and Safe Routes to School planning committee. 

  While at Cambridge Systematics, Ms. Laing has led project teams that developed Highway Safety Plans, Annual Evaluation Reports, and/or program area strategic plans for nine highway safety offices; supported state Traffic Records Coordinating Committees (TRCC); and provided on-call services and support to two highway safety offices. She has also led projects to update and/or implement Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSP) in nine states. SHSP project tasks include coordination with other state safety plans; research; data analysis; development of performance targets; identification of state, local, and Federal safety stakeholders, emphasis areas and research-based strategies; organization, facilitation and support of executive level committees, implementation teams, emphasis area teams and regional safety coalitions responsible for strategy development and implementation; SHSP performance tracking and evaluation. Her project work has also included regional transportation safety planning workshops, and providing technical assistance to counties, metropolitan planning organizations (MPO), and/or regional transportation planning organizations (RTPO) to develop local road safety plans (LRSP). 

  Ms. Laing was an advisory panel member for NHTSA’s first Countermeasures That Work: A Highway Safety Countermeasure Guide for State Highway Safety Offices. She served for eight years on the Governors Highway Safety Association‘s Executive Board and represented the Association on the national Child Passenger Safety Board. She has been an Emeritus member of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA) since 2008. Ms. Laing serves as a Subject Matter Expert in the development of the certification exam for the the Road Safety Professional (RSP). 

• Michael Trentecoste
  
  

  Michael Trentecoste
  Associate Administrator, FHWA, Emeritus  

  Michael Trentacoste retired on Sept. 30, 2017 as the U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Associate Administrator for Research, Development, and Technology located at the Turner Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, VA. In that position, he led a national coordinated program involving applied and advanced highway infrastructure, operations and safety RD&T; was FHWA’s lead coordinator with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), States and international organizations on highway R&D programs; and was responsible for developing the initial processes for selecting innovative technologies incorporated in FHWA’s Every Day Counts (EDC) program. 

  A tireless advocate for safety, Trentacoste directed FHWA’s Office of Safety and Office of Safety R&D and served as member and then chair of TRB’s Standing Committee on Transportation Safety Management. He has also served as a member of the Technical Activities Division’s Safety Section, which provides general oversight to nine committees and two task forces that propose research, share research findings, sponsor special activities, and provide a forum for transportation professionals to discuss today's and tomorrow's safety-related transportation issues. 

  He was the federal liaison to the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Technical Coordinating Committee for Safety Research that helped oversee SHRP 2’s Naturalist Driving Study, which resulted in the largest collection of data on driving behavior. In addition, Trentacoste has been a key player in development of the strategies designed to implement SHRP 2’s research results. 

  Mr. Trentacoste advanced the Department’s motor carrier safety program when he directed FHWA’s 500-person motor carrier field investigative staff and expanded the state commercial safety inspection grant program. He also guided development and implementation of the national Commercial Driver License (CDL) regulations. While in USDOT, Mr. Trentacoste also served as Executive Assistant to the Executive Director in the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and provided leadership in FRA’s activities with Amtrak, high-speed rail initiatives, and rail safety. 

  Trentacoste received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Manhattan College and his master’s degree in transportation from Northwestern University. He is a registered civil engineer in the State of New York. Currently, he is involved in planning for TRB’s Centennial Celebration. 

• Dr. Richard Pain
  
  

  Dr. Richard Pain
  TRB Senior Program Officer Emeritus  

  Dr. Pain recently retired from the Transportation Research Board.  During his 25-year tenure he was the Transportation Safety Coordinator in the Board’s Technical Activities Division. There he was staff to nineteen committees and a like number of subcommittees.  He founded eleven of those committees, e. g. Truck and Bus Safety, Statistics in Transportation, Visualization in Transportation. He administered the paper peer review process for the TRB Annual Meeting and technical journal, Transportation Research Record (48 papers peer reviewed in 1988 and 718 in 2013). He participated in the TRB Research Correlation Service visiting all the State DOTs, Governor’s representatives for Highway Safety, and many universities with transportation programs. He directed six funded projects for TRB. Two examples are:

  - Conference Proceedings 38, Future Truck and Bus Safety Research Opportunities, funded by FMCSA.

  - Conference Proceedings on the Web 5:  Research on the Health and Wellness of Commercial Truck and Bus Drivers:  Summary of an International Conference, funded by FMCSA.

  Following retirement Dr. Pain continues in a consultant role, including Committee on National Statistics, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He serves as part-time advisory staff on an FMCSA funded project Methodologies and Statistical Approaches to Understanding Driver Fatigue Factors in Motor Carrier Safety and Driver Health, 2013-2015. In 2016, he served as a phase one and two proposal reviewer for the U. S. DOT University Transportation Centers (UTC) competition.

  Prior to TRB Dr. Pain was actively engaged in human factors and safety research and evaluation in the transportation, nuclear, civil/social and military areas for 20 years. In these contexts, Dr. Pain conducted numerous laboratory, simulation and fully-operational experiments; training development and evaluation; and human engineering reviews. He directed major prime contracts and subcontracts and contributed to numerous research and development projects, e.g. Development of the Commercial CDL License. Dr. Pain has 20 years of management and administrative experience encompassing all aspects of planning, operations, personnel, marketing and profit and loss in the contract research business. 

• Richard Retting
  
  

  Richard Retting
  Sam Schwartz Engineering and formerly with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

  Richard Retting serves as Director of Safety & Research at Sam Schwartz Engineering. He is a widely recognized expert in traffic safety, with more than 37 years of traffic engineering, safety, and research experience. Richard has authored more than 100 journal articles and research reports. He joined Sam Schwartz in 2008, prior to which he served as Senior Transportation Engineer with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Before that he served as Deputy Assistant Commissioner for New York City DOT in charge of Traffic Safety Programs. Richard holds a Master of Science in Transportation Planning & Engineering, is a Fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and serves as Chair of the ITE Vision Zero Steering Committee.

• Fred Wegman
  
  

  Fred Wegman
  Emeritus Professor Traffic Safety at Delft University of Technology

  Fred Wegman is Emeritus Professor Traffic Safety at Delft University of Technology. Prior to that Fred worked at SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research in the Netherlands and he served this national institute as the managing director for 14 years. Throughout his career he was involved in activities of many international organizations. Fred chaired several OECD scientific committees and today he chairs IRTAD, the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group in OECD/ITF. He participated in several SUNflower-projects (benchmarking the safety performances of countries) and he co-authored a report using this methodology in Latin America. Fred is one of the founders of Delft Road Safety Courses. DRSC provides training courses on road safety for post-graduates from Low- and Middle Income Countries. Fred is one of the founding fathers of the Safe System approach in road safety. He acted as ‘Thinker in Residence’ in South Australia. He participated in the Academic Expert Group that prepared a set of recommendations for the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Stockholm, Sweden in 2020. He holds a Degree in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology. Fred is an officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

• Sheryl Wilkerson
  
  

  Sheryl Wilkerson
  Vice President for Governmental Relations, Michelin North America

  Sheryl Wilkerson is vice president of government affairs for Michelin North America, Inc. Prior to joining Michelin, she led Willow, LLC, a consulting firm that provided regulatory affairs, strategic planning, business development, public relations, and research services to global corporations, non-profit and technology companies. Prior to establishing Willow, Ms. Wilkerson served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Corporate Services for Ygomi LLC, an international holding and operating company where she oversaw corporate shared services: marketing, external affairs, strategy, and quality for Ygomi’s five companies. Prior to joining Ygomi, she served as Legal Advisor to a Federal Communications Commission Chairman on technology, wireless, enforcement, consumer protection, and international issues. She came to the FCC from ArrayComm, Inc., an adaptive antenna technology company where she was Vice President of Legislative Affairs. Before joining ArrayComm, Inc. she served as Director of the FCC’s Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs and as Special Counsel to the General Counsel. Previously, Wilkerson served as Staff Counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications, and Attorney Producer for the Federal Judicial Center. She has also served as a senior member of a Vice Presidential Campaign Debate Team and advisor to public and private boards and trade associations, including among others; Energous (NASDAQ: WATT); Great Call; U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association; U.S. DOT Intelligent Transportation Program Advisory Committee; Intelligent Transportation Society of America; Masters of Transportation Safety and Administration, Technical Advisory Committee (MTSA TAC), Graduate School, Clemson University; Executive Women’s Golf Association (LPGA Amateur Golf Association); and Doorways (Formerly, The Arlington Community Temporary Shelter). Ms. Wilkerson received her Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC and BA degree with honors in both Telecommunications and Afro-American Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and U.S. Supreme Court Bars and a Registered Corporate Coach ™ (RCC™) Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC).