Forum: Child Passenger Safety in the Air and in Automobiles

Invited Speaker Biographical Statements

Kristy Arbogast, PhD

Kristy Arbogast, PhD, is the Engineering Core Director for the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a Research Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997, she received her PhD in Bioengineering from University of Pennsylvania. She heads multiple projects on motor vehicle injuries in children including a focus on pediatric injury biomechanics. She was a co-investigator on the Partners for Child Passenger Safety project, a 10-year national study on child passenger safety funded by State Farm Insurance. Her current research efforts include the biomechanics of pediatric injury for the development of new safety designs and biofidelic child anthropomorphic dummies. She has given many invited lectures on the biomechanics of unintentional injury to children, both nationally and internationally, and has been recognized by the Society of Automotive Engineers, Stapp Car Crash Conference, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, and the Automotive Occupants Restraints Council for her work.

Grant Baldwin, PhD, MPH

Dr. Grant Baldwin became the Director of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention (DUIP) at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September 2008.

Prior to this appointment, Dr. Baldwin served as a senior advisor in the Coordinating Center for Environmental Health and Injury Prevention and the National Center for Environmental Health / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Dr. Baldwin also spent several years in the ATSDR Division of Health Education and Promotion as a team leader in a group educating community members and health professionals about preventing exposure to toxic substances. He began his career at CDC in September 1996. Dr. Baldwin received his PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 2003. He also received a MPH in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in 1996.

David E. Campbell

David E. Campbell is a Principle at David Campbell & Associates, Inc., a firm consulting in the areas of infant and juvenile products including car seats. Mr. Campbell is also President of Angel Guard Products, Inc., manufacturer and distributor of an infant car bed for premature and low birth weight infants. Prior to these positions, Mr. Campbell served as the VP of Engineering/Research & Development at Graco Children's Products, Inc. for its Century Products brand.

Mr. Campbell holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Buffalo and AAS degree in Mechanical Technology from the State University of New York at Morrisville. Mr. Campbell has over 35 years of experience in the development, engineering, manufacturing, and quality of juvenile products and toys for children. He has been actively involved for 25 years in the development of voluntary standards for juvenile products through the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and voluntary standards for child restraints through the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and International Standards Organization (ISO). He has served as Chairman of the SAE Child Restraint Standards Committee since 2000. Mr. Campbell was a Member of the Blue Ribbon Panel I and Blue Ribbon Panel II established by President Clinton to make recommendations for child passenger safety. He served as an Advisory Board member for the Partners for Child Passenger Safety (PCPS) program operated by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia 1998 to 2001 and is now a member of the Technical Advisory Board. Mr. Campbell has served as a Member of the editorial review board for Safe Ride News since 2002.

Nancy Lauck Claussen

Nancy Lauck Claussen is an Aviation Safety Inspector with the Air Transportation Division of the Flight Standards Service, Federal Aviation Administration, in Washington, DC. Her work consists primarily in the development of regulations, policy and guidance regarding air carrier operations. Over the last ten years she has been the team lead on FAA rulemaking projects regarding the use of child restraint systems on aircraft and has developed the guidance documents associated with those regulations.

Prior to joining the FAA thirteen years ago, she worked in the air carrier industry for sixteen years as a crewmember, training instructor and airline manager. She completed her Master's Degree in Aeronautical Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Lawrence E. Decina

Mr. Decina is a Senior Associate for TransAnalytics LLC., in Quakertown, PA. He holds a BS in Psychology and a MS in Information Science, both from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pa. He has over 30 years experience in highway safety research; and over 20 years of research in child passenger safety (CPS). His CPS research has been for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Safe Kids Worldwide, Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In the field of CPS, he has published over one dozen government reports and journal articles covering: observation studies of child restraint system and LATCH system use and misuse; effects of enforcement and public information and education on child restraint and booster seat use; strategies to increase use and proper child restraint and booster seat use; and effectiveness of booster seat law enforcement strategies. He has also developed guidebooks for CPS practitioners and law enforcement on observation techniques and enforcement, respectively. He is a certified child passenger safety technician and is a member of the Transportation Research Board Occupant Protection Committee.

Rick DeWeese

Rick DeWeese is the Team Coordinator of the FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute's Biodynamics Research Team and has been a safety researcher with the FAA for the past 20 years. He has authored, or co-authored several papers concerning the safety of aircraft seats and restraint systems as well as the performance of child restraint systems in aircraft. He also helped develop SAE standards and FAA Technical Standard Orders for aircraft seats, restraint systems, and aviation child safety devices. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Dennis R. Durbin, MD, MSCE

Dr. Dennis R. Durbin is a pediatric emergency physician and clinical epidemiologist. He is a Professor of Pediatrics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is an attending physician in the Emergency Department at Children's Hospital and the Co-Scientific Director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Durbin's research interests are in the area of pediatric injury epidemiology, with particular emphasis on the prevention of motor vehicle occupant injuries to children and adolescents. Dr. Durbin's research, in particular his research partnerships with State Farm Insurance Co, has been recognized by a number of organizations with several awards, including the Peter K. O'Rourke Special Achievement Award in Highway Safety from the Governor's Highway Safety Association, the Highway Safety Hero Award for Innovative Research from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Outstanding Research Award from the Emergency Medical Services for Children program of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and a fellow achievement award from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

As a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Durbin served on the Academy's Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention for 6 years until 2009. The committee is the Academy's primary policy-making body on issues related to injury prevention, and Dr. Durbin provided expertise in child passenger and teen driving safety to the committee.

Patricia Friend

A United Airlines flight attendant since 1966, Pat Friend is the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. During her fourteen (14) years in office, Friend has become a respected leader in the airline industry and throughout the labor movement.

Elected to her first four-year term as International President, Friend assumed leadership of AFA-CWA in January 1995. She began her fourth term as International President on January 1, 2007.

In May, 2010, Friend was appointed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to the recently formed DOT Future of Aviation Advisory Committee.

Mary Gooding

Mary has 35 years experience in aviation as cabin crew, in safety training and for the last 15 years, as the Cabin Safety Manager at Virgin Atlantic Airways, responsible for the operational safety policies and procedures. It is in this role that she has worked tirelessly to maintain the Company's 20 year old policy of providing a seat certified for aircraft use by infants and children between birth and three years old.

She has been a member of the Airbus Operators Cabin Focus Groups during the design phase of the A340 and A380 aircraft and was a partner in the EU-sponsored research consortium on the VERRES project (VTLA Emergency Requirements Research Evacuation Study), which reported on the challenges posed by various cabin configurations on the emergency evacuation of Very Large Transport Aircraft (VLTA). Mary acted as the airline observer on the Joint Operations Evaluation Board for the A380. Using her experience of the VERRES project, this work included providing guidance on the most efficient evacuation techniques needed to help ensure a successful certification evacuation exercise.

Mary is a serving member of the UK operators' Cabin Safety Liaison Group which aims to pursue the highest standards of cabin safety. She also sits on the Cabin Crew Advisory Board of the Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), which provides an independent confidential reporting system for all individuals employed in or associated with aviation.

Anne Taylor McCartt, Ph.D.

Anne Taylor McCartt, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President, Research, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The Institute is an independent, nonprofit, scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing the losses – deaths, injuries, and property damage – from highway crashes. Dr. McCartt oversees the Institute's research on child passenger safety. Most recently, this has included the development of a system to rate the lap and shoulder safety belt fit of booster seats and an observational survey of the use of top tethers for forward-facing child restraints. Current research is evaluating the usability of LATCH systems in different vehicles. The Institute also has published research on topics ranging from the safest vehicle seating positions for children to factors leading to crash fatalities to children placed in child restraints to coverage gaps in child restraint and seat belt laws affecting children. Dr. McCartt has worked in the highway safety field for about 25 years and has been with the Institute since 2002. She has authored more than 150 technical reports and scientific papers on a variety of highway safety topics. She was president of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine and serves on expert committees and advisory boards of the Transportation Research Board and other safety organizations. Dr. McCartt received a B.A. from Duke University and a doctorate in public administration and policy from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, State University of New York at Albany.

John M. Meenan

John M. Meenan is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Air Transport Association, Inc. He is responsible for all aspects of ATA operations, with a particular focus on technical, safety, security, environmental, economic and legal policy issues impacting the airline industry.

Meenan joined ATA as an Assistant General Counsel in 1985 following nine years with the United States Secret Service. In his former positions with ATA, he has been involved in airport issues including noise abatement, airport access, environment, slot restrictions, airport and airways system financing and Federal Aviation Administration reform issues, among others. He has also acted as the industry representative on numerous Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration committees and working groups and has been a frequent member of United States delegations to various international bodies including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Labor Organization.

Meenan earned a J.D. degree with honors from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California and a B.A. degree in political science from the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

ATA is the trade association for the leading U.S. airlines; its members transport over 95 percent of all the passenger and cargo traffic in the United States. ATA assists its members by promoting aviation safety, advocating industry positions, conducting industry-wide programs and ensuring public understanding and awareness of the airline industry.

Stephen Rouhana, Ph.D.

As senior technical leader for safety in the Passive Safety Research and Advanced Engineering Department, Stephen Rouhana, PhD, works with Ford's occupant protection systems design and was instrumental in the development of pediatric crash dummies. He is internationally recognized for pioneering research in the area of human response to impact, particularly with regard to abdominal injuries and air bag noise. Dr. Rouhana, who joined Ford in 2000 after 17 years with General Motors, has led the development of advanced belt systems, including the inflatable belt, in which a small, tubular-shaped inflatable bag can deploy inside a shoulder belt in the event of a crash. He has published research findings on basic biomechanical research, crash test dummy development, and seat belts in more than 70 technical papers in a number of technical journals; has written a chapter on "Biomechanics of Abdominal Trauma," published in 2002 in Accidental Injury: Biomechanics and Prevention; and has received six patents from the U.S. Patent Office and has three patents pending. Dr. Rouhana is an SAE fellow.

Alexander W. (Sandy) Sinclair

Alexander (Sandy) Sinclair is an experienced traffic safety and communications professional at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in Washington, D.C.

For more than a decade, he has been a leader in NHTSA's efforts to protect the nation's child passengers. In this capacity, he promotes educational, promotional and law enforcement activities with a number of corporations, nonprofit organizations, and public safety agencies to reduce crash-related injuries among children and families.

After first joining the agency in 1999, Sinclair managed the creation and implementation of a new social marketing campaign to expand NHTSA's Buckle Up America program, and managed a public service advertising campaign to prevent aggressive driving. He has also been a NHTSA speechwriter, has conducted media events, developed public service advertising campaigns with the Ad Council and administered local demonstration programs to increase seat belt and child safety seat use among minority and low-income populations.

Prior to joining NHTSA, Sinclair oversaw grassroots injury prevention programming and community coalition development for the National Safe Kids Campaign in Washington, D.C. from 1990-1999.

A Southern California native, he worked to improve educational opportunities for minority and troubled youth in Southern California while earning his degree in political science at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1980. He also promoted primary health care as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a distant mountain village in the northern Philippines in the mid-1980s.

Kathleen Vasconcelos

Kathleen Vasconcelos is Vice President, Education and Operations, for the Air Safety Institute (a division of the AOPA Foundation). She is responsible for the day-to-day operations of ASI, including the development and production of training courses and oversight of the accident database. Vasconcelos is a commercial pilot with instrument and multiengine ratings, and an instrument-rated flight instructor. She holds a degree in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Lorrie Walker, MS

Lorrie Walker, MS, is the Training Manager and Technical Advisor at Safe Kids Worldwide. She has more than 20 years experience in the traffic safety field, predominately in the areas of child passengers, bikes, school buses, children with special health care needs, teen drivers, teen passengers and pedestrian safety.

Walker joined Safe Kids Worldwide as the training manager and technical advisor for the Safe Kids Buckle Up program in August, 2004. She develops community-based educational programs on vehicle safety and oversees the national training program for more than 300 Safe Kids Coalitions throughout the United States.

Walker currently serves as the Chair for the National Child Passenger Safety Board.