President & Principal scientist
Linda is President and Principal Scientist at Touchstone Evaluations, Inc. Her work focuses upon driver attention, performance, and safety, and how they are affected by advanced technologies, including various levels of automation. Linda holds a PhD (in Experimental/Cognitive Psychology) and has over 36 years of research experience, which spans both academic and applied positions. Her academic appointments have been at Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (2009-2015) and Wayne State University (first on the faculty (1979-1981), then as adjunct faculty (1981-2008), and then at the School of Medicine (2009-2011). On the applied side, she worked for 27 years at General Motors (GM) in their human factors and safety operations (1981 - 2008) where she rose to the level of Technical Fellow (and served in several leadership roles). A key focus of her work there was on prevention of distraction. While at GM, she worked to establish a framework for preventing distraction and safeguarding driver attention both within the company -- and throughout the industry, including at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (where she helped represent GM). She has numerous publications and holds 6 patents. In late 2008, she co-founded Touchstone Evaluations to support safety research within the automotive and consumer products sectors. Her work has been recognized with several awards, including the GM Chairman’s Honors Award, the company’s highest honor, and, in 2008, the A. R. Lauer Safety Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in the United States.
VP Strategy & business development
Brian is Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for Touchstone, and Principal Engineer. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. Prior to Touchstone, Brian had 40 years of experience in both technical and leadership roles with a major automotive company, where he reached the level of Chief Technologist and Technical Fellow in Technology Intelligence. Known as a visionary in Human Factors and Driving Simulation, he has extensive experience managing (as well as conducting) research and development in human-machine systems, human performance, and vehicle safety. Brian’s scientific and engineering accomplishments have been recognized through a number of awards (including the prestigious GM Boss Kettering Award and the GM Chairman’s Honors Award) -- and holds several patents. His research and product application interests span a wide range -- from understanding and addressing effects of impairment on driving (including alcohol, drowsiness, and disability), to developing human factors toolsets ranging from driver models to simulators, to assessing the effects of advanced technologies in human systems, to improving the holistic experience for customers in innovative products.
senior research scientist
Wayne is a Senior Research Scientist at Touchstone Evaluations. He has 18 years of experience in human factors engineering, and holds degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering and Human Factors from Virginia Tech. He has earned several certifications, including certification as a Human Factors Professional (CHFP), Traffic Accident Reconstructionist (ACTAR #2788), and Level 2 CDR Technician. He has worked in a wide variety of settings, ranging from research to accident reconstruction. His specialties include: eye glance behavior, naturalistic driving data, automated vehicle interactions, and vehicular accident analysis.
research scientist
Sean is a Research Scientist with Touchstone Evaluation. He has 10 years of experience in driver workload assessment (including measurement of eye glances. He has helped design, carry out, and report on distracted driving experiments, including ones funded by CAMP, Global Automakers and the Alliance, and private OEMs, such as Toyota’s CSRC. He has used both automatic eye tracking and manual glance reduction techniques to compute the glance values critical to NHTSA’s Phase 1 Distracted Driving glance criteria -- and has computed these values across multiple vehicles. He has programmed driving demand scenarios and software and instrumented several production vehicles. At Touchstone Evaluations, he has worked with clients to identify tasks for evaluation, planning and executing experiments in simulators and on the road.
research scientist
Sandra is a Research Scientist at Touchstone. She has 8 years of experience in human factors engineering -- and holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Purdue. In addition, she completed a graduate summer faculty fellowship at NASA - Johnson Space Center and was an industrial engineering faculty member at Clemson, from 2007-2013. She is active in supporting the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, including serving on the Technical Program Committee and previously having served on the Executive Council. Sandra’s specialties include: Cognitive Human Factors, Information Flow and Knowledge Development within Complex Environments, Team Coordination, and Healthcare Systems Engineering.
research scientist
Rashmi is a Research Scientist at Touchstone Evaluations. She has 4 years of experience in human factors research and holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two MS degrees (one in Biomedical Engineering and one in Industrial and Systems Engineering), and an Electrical and Computer Engineering Degree. Her research has examined the driving safety and associated health-related outcomes of vulnerable older drivers using naturalistic driving data. In addition, she has considerable experience with driving simulator setup, operation, and application. Rashmi is highly skilled in conceptualizing and applying innovative analytic techniques to data.
research scientist
Marie is a Research Scientist at Touchstone. She has 20 years of experience in applied psychology and human factors -- and holds a Ph.D. from Wayne State University. She serves on the faculty of Saginaw Valley State University and worked for a number of years in the General Motors Safety Center, and subsequently in research programs sponsored by them. Her work there focused on active safety systems, including test and evaluation using instrumented vehicles. Her specialties include: Cognitive Human Factors, Advanced Technology Effects on Driving, User Interfaces Involving Text, Reading, and Language-Based Communication of Information.
Touchstone Project Support Personnel
research Associate
Amanda is a Research Associate at Touchstone. She holds a B.S. in Psychology, has 10 years of experience in supporting all aspects of research, including simulator testing, video-glance analysis, task analysis and modeling, and research documentation. She has assisted with a variety of lab, simulator, and on-road studies. A number of these studies have also addressed issues in neuroscience. She serves as an experimenter in many of our studies, as well as oversees participant intake. She holds a current IRB certification. Amanda is skilled in developing and overseeing test procedure and test protocol development -- and often manages setup of the testing environment, pilot testing, and many aspects of data collection.
research Associate
Moriya is a Research Associate at Touchstone. She holds a B.S. in Psychology, has 5 years of experience in supporting all aspects of research, including video-scene analysis, video-glance analysis, behavior coding from video, situation awareness coding, simulator testing, task analysis and modeling, and has special interest in design. She has assisted with more than 10 simulator studies and 2 on-road studies. A number of these studies have been distraction-assessment studies, and many of the glance-analysis initiatives have been done in order to compute glance metrics identified in distraction guidelines. Moriya maintains a current IRB certification because of her active role as an experimenter in participant intake and data collection.
research Assistant
Alicia is a Research Assistant at Touchstone Evaluations. She holds a B.S. in Psychology. She has 5 years of experience at Touchstone, and additional experience prior to that. She has provided support to all aspects of research, including simulator testing, on-road testing, video-glance analysis, literature review-and-analysis, and protocol development. She has special interest and knowledge in virtual environments and their application to research. Alicia is very experienced in conducting distraction-assessment studies, including studies using occlusion goggles, and has logged hundreds and hundreds of hours of video coding analysis -- much of it done to support computation of glance metrics defined under distraction guidelines. Alicia holds a current IRB certification -- and also a First Aid certification -- because of her active role as an experimenter in participant intake and data collection.
research Assistant
John is a Research Assistant at Touchstone, who holds a B.S. in Psychology. He has 5 years of experience in supporting research (3 at Touchstone and 2 in academic labs) -- spanning various venues (observational, lab, and on-road testing) as well as video analysis. He, too, has special interest and knowledge in virtual environments and their application to research. John is experienced in conducting distraction-assessment studies and has coded video in order to support computation of glance metrics identified in distraction guidelines. John also has computer programming skills: Basic C++, Camtasia, GIMP -- and some analysis skills in SPSS. As an active experimenter and analyst, he holds a current IRB certification and a First Aid certification.
Business and accounting administrator
Laura is Touchstone’s Business and Accounting Administrator. She also works in Project Management. She holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Western Michigan University, and has >5 years of experience in supporting office and financial operations. She assists with a range of business, financial, project planning, tracking, and management responsibilities -- including payroll, invoicing, cost tracking and reporting.