Introducing the 2023 Distinguished Speaker Series
The WTS International 2023 Distinguished Speaker Series highlights the voices of top-level experts, speakers, authors, and academics, speaking on topics crucial to equity diversity, and access in transportation. WTS members, partners, and transportation stakeholders will learn about the history of travel, social justice, designing equitable infrastructure, gender-based policy and research, civil service, and much more.
February 17, 2023 | 1–2:30 PM ET
Dr. Mia Bay
American Historian and Author, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance
Professor Mia Bay is a scholar of American and African American intellectual, cultural, and social history, whose recent interests include black women's thought, African American approaches to citizenship, and the history of race and transportation. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Toronto. Read Dr. Bay's full bio.
Order Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance.
MARCH 8, 2023 | 1–2:30 PM ET
Dr. MISSY CUMMINGS
U.S. NAVY Fighter PILOT; FORMER SAFETY ADVISOR, NHTSA; and Scholar
Mary (Missy) Cummings served as a naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999; one of the U.S. Navy's first female fighter pilots. She is a professor in the George Mason University Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computer Science departments. She is an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow and recently served as the senior safety advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Her research interests include the application of artificial intelligence in safety-critical systems, assured autonomy, human-systems engineering, and the ethical and social impact of technology.
July 27, 2023 | 1–2:30 PM ET
Sarah M. Kaufman
Interim Executive Director of the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation
Sarah M. Kaufman is the Interim Executive Director of the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, where she researches, advocates for, and educates about, cutting-edge technologies in transportation. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Planning, teaching Intelligent Cities and Advanced Projects in Urban Planning. Ms. Kaufman directs several projects related to improving transportation through technology: an autonomous vehicles policy framework for NYC; The Pink Tax on Transportation, an analysis of how safety concerns impact women's travel patterns in New York City; Intelligent Paratransit, to rethink how we transport seniors and the disabled; and the Emerging Leaders in Transportation Fellowship, a program to enhance innovation at all levels of transportation planning and policymaking.
Registration Information will be available soon.
More sessions will be announced throughout the year!
Questions? Contact programs@wtsinternational.org.