About the Safety and Operations Program Staff

Christopher Strong, P.E., is Program Manager for Safety and Operations. He has more than 11 years of public/private sector transportation planning, analytical and research experience in transportation problems. He has conducted research in areas such as ITS planning, design and evaluation; safety; benefit-cost analysis; and transportation issues in national parks. He is currently secretary/treasurer of the Montana Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, is a member of the TRB Committee on Native American Transportation Issues, and is active in ITS America.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Kaisy is an assistant professor in the College of Engineering at Montana State University. He has extensive teaching and research experience in many areas of transportation engineering, including traffic operations and management, traffic safety, signal optimization and control, highway design, airport engineering, and transportation systems. Dr. Al-Kaisy also has prior experience in both the public and private sector as a contractor, project engineer and highway design engineer.

Dr. Mike Kelly, C.P.E., is a senior human factors engineer and project manager with over 30 years of post-doctoral experience managing, directing and performing human factors research and development on advanced transportation systems, communication systems and centers, aviation systems and industrial facilities. He led the effort to create a high-fidelity driving simulation laboratory at WTI, and uses it to conduct testing of driver performance, behavior, and safety in response to custom-designed road and traffic scenarios.

Dr. Pat McGowen, P.E., is an assistant professor jointly appointed between WTI and the Civil Engineering Department at Montana State University, where he has worked on projects relating to rural ITS, transportation impacts on wildlife, safety and travel, and tourism. Dr. McGowen is the founder and co-chair of the TRB subcommittee on Animal-Vehicle Collisions (ANB20-2). He obtained his bachelor of science and master of science degrees in civil engineering from Montana State University, and his doctorate from the University of California-Irvine in transportation systems engineering.

Dr. David Veneziano is a research scientist with WTI. Between his professional career and graduate education, he has gained experience on several types of studies, including safety and operations, remote sensing, intelligent transportation systems  and geographic information systems analysis. Dr. Veneziano is a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and is a friend of the TRB Committee on Safety Data, Analysis, and Evaluation.

Dr. Nicholas Ward is a senior research scientist at WTI and a professor in the Industrial Engineering Department at Montana State University. He has nearly 15 years of experience in human factors research, focusing on driver behavior research and human factors design with Intelligent Transportation Systems, specifically through the use of immersive driving simulation. He has directed driving simulation programs at two other universities, and is the manager of WTI's suite of driving simulators.

Dr. Zhirui (Jared) Ye is a research scientist at WTI. He has research experience in areas such as traffic engineering, traffic safety, traffic data analysis, software development and design, and ITS. He earned his doctorate in civil engineering from Texas A&M University, and his bachelor of science and master of science degrees in civil engineering from Southeast University (China).