Siddartha Khastgir

Head of Verification and Validation, WMG

Siddartha Khastgir is the Head of Verification & Validation for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) at WMG, University of Warwick. He leads several collaborative R&D projects with industrial and academic partners nationally and internationally. His research focuses on generating safety evidence and arguments, test scenario generation, simulation-based testing, and safety of AI systems. Leveraging the cross-domain nature of safety, he is also involved in safety research in aviation, marine and healthcare. He has been appointed as a member of the Department for Transport’s Science Advisory Council.

Siddartha is an active member of various national and international standardisation and regulatory groups, including ISO, SAE and ASAM. Currently, he represents the UK on several ISO technical committees and is the lead author for two new ISO standards for aspects of automated driving systems. He sits on the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) committees on safety of automated driving.

He has received numerous national and international awards for his research contributions, including the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 focused on safety evaluation of CAVs.

David Bott

Principal Fellow

WMG

After 26 years with BPLink opens in a new window, Courtaulds and ICI, spent leading research groups in both their corporate centres and business units, David discovered an interest in start-ups 16 years ago.

He was diverted into spending 7 years setting up and directing the Technology Strategy Board (now rebranded as Innovate UKLink opens in a new window), the UK's innovation agency where he was responsible for all the innovation programmes.

He is a Principal Fellow at WMGLink opens in a new window, non-executive Director of Oxford Advanced SurfacesLink opens in a new window, has been a member of Sheffield University Council, chaired Oxford Biomaterials and has engaged in a wide variety of activities involving materials, design, sustainability and innovation.

Jessica Uguccioni

Automated Vehicles Review- Lead Lawyer

Law Commission

Connor Champ

Remote Driving-Lawyer

Law Commission

Connor is a lawyer on the Law Commission’s remote driving project. He was also a lawyer on the Law Commission’s four-year review of automated driving. Before embarking on a legal career, Connor was a neuroscientist who specialised in the quantitative modelling of sensory systems. He has held positions at the University of Queensland in Australia and at the University of Tübingen in Germany.

Dr Andrew Berry EngD CEng

Emerging Policy Specialist

UK Civil Aviation Authority

Andrew works for the UK Civil Aviation Authority as an Emerging Policy Specialist, supporting the innovation hub and the policy teams for both Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) and airspace. He has a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and an Engineering Doctorate on planning and control architectures for autonomous unmanned vehicles. Andrew’s technical specialism has progressed from flight control, through mission systems to increasing levels of autonomy for unmanned air vehicles. Before joining the CAA in Aug 2022 Andrew has over 20 years of experience working for the UK Defence Evaluation & Research Agency, QinetiQ and Blue Bear where he was the technical lead for the development of a state-of-the-art swarming UAV capability that allowed a single operator to manage a swarm of 20 drones all collaborating on a single mission.

Sarah Smith

Law Reform Lawyer

Law Commission

Sarah is a solicitor advocate and law reform lawyer at the Law Commission of England and Wales. She works in the public law and law in Wales team, focusing primarily on the Law Commission’s project on autonomy in aviation. She has also worked on projects on electoral law and the system of devolved tribunals in Wales.

Before joining the Law Commission in 2018, she worked in the public and administrative law team at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP. During her time at Herbert Smith Freehills she spent periods seconded to the human rights organisation Liberty and the Bank of England.

Michael Gadd

Head of the Office of Airworthiness,

Blue Bear Systems Research Ltd

Konstantinos Mattas

Research Fellow

European Commission - Joint Research Centre

Katrina Kemp

Maritime Autonomy Policy Lead

Marine and Coast Guard Agency (MCA)

David Wong

Senior Technology and Innovation Manager

SMMT

David Wong is Senior Technology and Innovation Manager at SMMT, the UK’s automotive industry body with more than 850 members including all major vehicle manufacturers, component suppliers, aftermarket businesses, technology and engineering firms, and mobility start-ups. David is SMMT’s lead on connected and automated vehicles, electric and fuel cell vehicles, autotech and future mobility innovation. David sits on the Automotive Council Technology Group and the multi-sectoral EV Energy Taskforce. He is a Non-Executive Director of Cenex and was a member of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Future Communications Challenge Group, which advised the government on 5G strategy.

Human Factors of Transport Systems

University of Leeds

Professor Merat is an experimental psychologist and research group leader of the Human Factors and Safety Group, @ITS Leeds. She also leads the Automation theme at Leeds and is responsible for the strategic direction of research conducted @Virtuocity, a suite of human in the loop simulators used to study user interactions with automated vehicles. Professor Merat is currently leading the User sub-project of the flagship European project Hi-Drive, which is investigating the human factors challenges and opportunities of automated vehicles for drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and remote operators.

Sarah Gates

Director of Public Policy

Wayve

Sarah Gates is Director of Public Policy at Wayve, a London-based company pioneering AI technology to enable autonomous vehicles to drive in complex urban environments. Prior to joining Wayve, Sarah had a multidisciplinary background across a variety of science and technology roles. She began her career in academia, with a PhD at Imperial College London and has since specialised in science and research policy; in AI, data and emerging technologies, both in UK Government and industry. At Wayve Sarah works closely with government and our partners, focusing on the future regulatory framework for autonomous

vehicles.

Bob Banks

Technology Development Manager, Group R&D

Vodafone

Bob attended Bath University where he gained a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, an MSc in Mobile Communications, and a PhD in Cellular Communications.

Mariana Avezum

Technical Program Manager for Mobility

Dr. Mariana Avezum is a Technical Program Manager at Vay. Vay presents a new teledriving first approach to driverless mobility, where the vehicle is remotely driven by a teledriver in one of our centres. In the end of 2022 Vay received a permit from the city of Hamburg to be able to put a tele driven vehicle without anyone inside on a public European road.

At Vay, Mariana is responsible for the ODD definition and for the roadmap definition of the data products domain. Using a data-driven approach for the different considerations necessary for ODD definition, the team ensure that enough connectivity, safety, and driving complexity are available in the defined ODDs.

Mariana is a Brazilian computer scientist who has previously worked in several smart mobility projects.

Ryan Lamm

Director

Department of Robotics

Department of AI

Southwest Research Institute

Ryan Lamm has 25 years of experience in the areas of automated driving and non-linear controls. He is currently the Director of both the Robotics and AI Departments at SwRI. Mr. Lamm is a U.S. Expert for ISO TC204 WG14 and for ISO TC22/SC33/WG9, Sensor Team lead for NATO STO-AVT-341, a Senior Member of IEEE, and was named one of San Antonio’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2013 by the San Antonio Business Journal. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Management of Technology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a CPD from The Wharton School.