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VTTI Profile: Thomas A. Dingus, Director

ally help educate the next generation of engineers in my field. I chose Virginia Tech because it had the best human factors program in the country. Just after coming to the university, I met Professor Walt Wierwille. Walt had a stellar reputation for conducting groundbreaking research, for moving his students ef ficiently through the graduate programs, and for giv ing them opportunities to work as graduate assistants to pay their way through school. As it happens, Walt had some interesting automotive safety work being performed in his labs. While I never planned on study ing automotive safety, it quickly became apparent that this field was at the center of injury prevention and risk management. That is, the most injuries occur behind the wheel. Fortunately, I found there is an entire range of data sources and potential countermeasures avail able to decrease the number of injuries and deaths caused by crashes. As promised, Walt pushed me through the program with an M.S. and Ph.D. in three years while I conducted two projects for General Mo

I became interested in safety and risk management early during my career while working as a human fac tors engineer in the aerospace industry. I decided to at tend graduate school to learn more about saving lives via human factors engineering. My goal was to eventu

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