News

We are pleased to announce that we have three new people in place in SAFER Core who will contribute to developing the project portfolio, creating engagement and knowledge sharing.

Linus Wågström will take on the role as Research area director for Safety performance evaluation. Together with him, Anna Theander will work as Co-Research area director. New Co-Research area director for Human body protection will be Sara Kallin.

Linus to support multidisciplinary real-world safety research 
Dr. Linus Wågström has more than 15 years' experience in work related to passenger car safety. He has conducted research regarding crash safety in the automotive industry and holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Crash Safety division at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden. His thesis "Structural Safety Design for Real-World Situations” was presented in 2013 as a part of Volvo Cars’ Industrial PhD Programme. He is currently employed by Volvo Cars and has experience working with structural integrity and occupant injury prevention as well as real-world safety performance and active safety benefit simulations. Linus is familiar to SAFER and is involved in several SAFER projects, e.g. as project leader for A-HBM IV and coordinating Volvo Cars’ activities in VIRTUAL.
”I am really looking forward to working with and developing the reference group Safety performance evaluation at SAFER together with the partners, representing various disciplines”, Linus says.

Linus is especially looking forward to looking into how new technologies can contribute to the understanding in this complex area, e.g. machine learning and new sensor functionality, and how we can continue to find methodologies for evaluating real-world safety performance, including all road users.

Linus continues:
“I hope that I can contribute with a broad experience from working with vehicle safety, both from different development phases and in various roles. Since I have also worked in different phases of crashes, from in pre-crash, in-crash and post-crash, I hope that I can contribute to further deepening the cross-cutting collaboration between SAFER's research areas”.

Bringing in new perspectives
Anna Theander will work together with Linus to develop the research area and expand the project portfolio. Anna has 15 years of experience within the automotive industry working with traffic safety and active safety systems. She is currently leading the Accident research team at Volvo Group. Sara Kallin takes on the role working with Jolyon Carroll to lead the Research area Human body protection. Sara is Lic.Sc., University Lecturer, Certified Prosthetist Orthotist at Jönköping University and will bring in new valuable perspectives to e.g. human body modelling and vulnerable road users.

Important part of SAFER’s core activities
Working as a Research area director (RAD) in the SAFER environment is a 20% role, leading the project portfolio within one of the four research areas. The RAD has the task to lead and develop the Reference group with members from industry, university, institutes etc, who are performing and planning research in the research area. Main tasks are to chair, lead and develop the Reference group, pro-active lead and develop the project portfolio. Also, the RAD leads the road map development and stimulate cooperation among the SAFER partners active in the research areas through multi-disciplinary project. The RADs are members of the Management team at SAFER. 
The Co-driver has the task to support the Research area director (RAD), for instance by e.g. be a proactive speaking partner and keep a strategic dialogue with the RAD in general matters related to the Research area and its development.

We welcome Linus, Anna and Sara to their new roles!

SAFER’s Research area directors and their Co-drivers
•    Road user behavior: Azra Habibovic / Anna Sjörs Dahlman
•    Systems for accident prevention and AD: Fredrik Sandblom / Arne Nåbo
•    Human body protection: Jolyon Carroll, Sara Kallin
•    Safety performance evaluation: Linus Wågström / Anna Theander