NHTSA Event | Guest Bios

Latest Event

National AV Safety Forum

March 10, 2026

Michael Kratsios

Assistant to the President, Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy

Michael Kratsios, Assistant to the President and the thirteenth Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, oversees the development and execution of the nation’s science and technology policy agenda. He leads the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure American leadership in scientific discovery and technological innovation, including in critical and emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, nuclear energy, advanced air mobility and automated vehicles.

Aicha Evans

Chief Executive Officer, Zoox

Aicha Evans joined Zoox as the chief executive officer in 2019. Prior to Zoox, Evans served as senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Intel Corporation, driving the company's transformation from a PC-centric to a data-centric company. Previously, she ran the company’s wireless efforts and oversaw a global team of 7,000 engineers. Evans is a member of the supervisory board of SAP.

Tekedra Mawakana

Co-CEO, Waymo

Tekedra Mawakana is the co-CEO of Waymo. As Co-CEO, she is responsible for overall company strategy, ensuring that Waymo’s transformational technology — the Waymo Driver — is commercialized and scaled for widespread global adoption. For over 20 years, she’s worked to advance consumer technology companies globally. Prior to leading Waymo, Mawakana served as the company’s chief operating officer, and before that she led teams across five continents at eBay, Yahoo, AOL and Startec. She started her career as a lawyer at Steptoe & Johnson navigating highly regulated industries. Beyond her role at Waymo, Mawakana serves on the board of directors for Intuit and advances social-impact-focused investments as a limited partner and advisor with the Operator Collective. Mawakana is the recipient of numerous awards, including the TIME AI 100, the Silicon Valley Power 100, the Ebony Power 100, and Automotive News' 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry.

Chris Urmson

CEO, Aurora

Chris Urmson is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Aurora. With over two decades of experience advancing autonomous vehicle technology, Urmson began his journey as director of technology for Carnegie Mellon’s DARPA Grand and Urban Challenge teams. He later helped launch and lead Google’s self-driving car project, now known as Waymo. In 2017, he co-founded Aurora alongside Drew Bagnell and Sterling Anderson to bring the benefits of self-driving technology to market safely, quickly, and broadly.

Kevin Gay

Senior Director, Uber

Kevin Gay is the senior director, global head of safety for autonomous mobility & delivery at Uber where he leads all safety aspects of the early integration and ongoing operation of autonomous mobility and delivery vehicles on the global platform. He previously served as the chair of the IEEE P2846 Working Group, a voting member of the SAE On-Road Automated Driving Committee and represented Uber in the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium, all of which are focused on developing safety standards for automated vehicles. Prior to Uber, Gay served as the director of safety standards policy at Aurora, where he led Aurora’s technical engagements with industry standards development organizations as well as developed the internal policies governing the utilization of safety standards in development and testing of the Aurora Driver. 

Phil Koopman

Faculty Emeritus, CMU

Philip Koopman is an internationally recognized expert on AV safety whose work in that area spans almost 30 years. He has also worked extensively in more general embedded system design, software quality, and safety across numerous transportation, industrial, and defense application domains including conventional automotive software and hardware systems. Koopman originated the UL 4600 autonomous vehicle safety standard and received the Industry Legend award at the 2024 the Self-Driving Industry Awards. He is faculty emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University.

Jeff Wishart

Automated Vehicle Behavioral Regulations Lead, GM

Jeffrey Wishart is the AV behavioral regulations lead for GM and an adjunct faculty professor at Arizona State University. Wishart conducts research and development on products and services in the areas of energy, environment, and advanced transportation. He has authored numerous papers and reports on these topics. Wishart has more than 18 years of experience in the advanced transportation and energy areas and is the vice chair of the SAE On-Road Automated Driving Committee and the chair of the V&V Task Force under the ORAD Committee.

Adam Campbell

Head of Safety Innovation, Gatik

Adam Campbell leads the safety innovation group at Gatik overseeing the safety and deployment strategies across engineering, operations, regulatory and commercial teams. Before joining Gatik, he was the human factors practice lead for one of Canada’s largest independent forensic engineering firms, where he researched and investigated driver performance in safety-critical situations. Campbell is a published author of multiple peer-reviewed journal articles across human factors, driver performance, and is a qualified expert in in these fields by the Superior Courts of Justice.

Allison Drutchas

Autonomous Vehicles Attorney

Allison Drutchas has been an attorney for leading autonomous vehicle companies for 10 years, helping to pioneer the country's first driverless deployments and building novel regulatory compliance programs. She joined Waymo in 2018 and currently serves as managing counsel advising Waymo’s engineering, product, operations, and policy teams and leading Waymo's AV Compliance function. Drutchas has also taught as an adjunct professor at UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings) and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

John Maddox

Senior Director, Zoox

John Maddox is the senior director for safety strategy and operations for Zoox. He is responsible for establishing and leading corporate safety policy and strategy, implementing a comprehensive approach to operational safety, and ensuring appropriate and complete regulatory reporting to government agencies. Maddox has over 30 years of experience in the automotive and transportation space, with extensive executive experience in industry, government, and academia. In addition to his current position at Zoox, he has worked as the head of AV and product safety for Lyft, associate administrator for vehicle safety research at NHTSA, and was the founder and CEO of the American Center for Mobility. Maddox also served as director of collaborative programs at University of Michigan and Texas A&M University, as well numerous engineering, executive, and research roles at Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen Group North America. He holds several patents in the automated and connected vehicle space and has earned awards and recognitions from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Maddox has served on a number of advisory and executive boards and is very active with the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium and other national and international bodies.