Guest professor Carol Flannagan to SAFER
Dr. Carol A. C. Flannagan will join SAFER as a guest professor from September until June next year. She is a research associate professor in University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute Biosciences Group and director of CMISST. Carol will perform research in the area of Autonomous vehicles: challenges for road safety analysis at SAFER.
A personal greeting from Dr. Flannagan:
I am currently a Research Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. My area of research is in transportation data, data analysis, and novel methods for understanding transportation safety and mobility. I am thrilled to be working with collaborators at SAFER as a guest professor, and I am particularly excited to be coming to stay and work in Sweden from September 2017 through May or June of 2018. I will also be at SAFER for two weeks starting March 27.
The project we will undertake involves two components--research and course development. On the research side, we will work together to understand methods for analysis of naturalistic driving data. A common method, the use of near-crashes or crash surrogates to understand crashes, introduces some potential methodological issues. We will look at how crash surrogates are selected, how they influence results, and how well they represent crash patterns in analysis. In addition, we will develop methods to use driving data and new data sources to understand the safety performance of automated vehicles at different levels of automation.
On the education side, I will collaborate with András Bálint to develop a course in transportation data science and analytical methods. The course contents will include the latest developments in data science for transportation.
Professionally, I am excited to talk about ideas and work on problems with a new group of researchers who are leaders in their field. I anticipate learning new ways to think about data problems in transportation and really expanding my knowledge, thinking, and skills in the area. Personally, I am excited to learn a new language and be immersed in a different culture. In particular, I admire Swedish attention to work-life balance and hope to adopt some better strategies.
I am grateful to Chalmers, SAFER, and VINNOVA for this opportunity to have new conversations, think about new ideas, hear about other research, and develop new perspectives.
