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Mary T. Lee

Mary Townsend Lee is an Engineering Psychologist in the Human Factors Division of the U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center). She began working at the Volpe Center as a co-op student in 1996 while she was earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Psychology from Tufts University. During that time, she collected and analyzed data for aviation research projects sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration. Topics included pilot and air traffic controller communications, flight simulators, airport runway safety, and air traffic controller training techniques.

After she graduated in 1997, Mary worked for four years at a software company where her responsibilities included consulting, project management, design, and development of applications for the credit card industry. She worked very closely with representatives from the user populations to define system specifications, workflows, and user interface needs. She was also responsible for coordinating the activities of the technical staff.

In 2001, Mary returned to the Volpe Center, and began working on projects for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). For NHTSA, she has supported programs evaluating new technologies in automobiles. Her work for the FRA has fallen into three major categories: development of a computerized aid for railroad traffic planning, evaluation of organizational safety culture at railroads implementing programs such as behavior based safety and participatory safety rules revision, and design of driving simulator experiments to study driver behavior at grade crossings. She has also contributed to FAA projects related to runway incursions and air traffic controller memory aids.

Phone: 617/494-3157
E-mail: mary.lee@volpe.dot.gov