Dr. Donald L. Fisher
Principal Technical Advisor for Surface Transportation Human Factors
Donald L. Fisher, PhD, is the principal technical advisor in human factors transportation at the U.S. DOT Volpe Center. Prior to becoming a principal technical advisor, he served as a faculty fellow at the U.S. DOT Volpe Center for two years.
Fisher joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the fall of 1982. He became the head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in 2009 and served in that capacity until August of 2015.
Fisher received his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College, master’s degree from Harvard, and PhD from the University of Michigan.
He is the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over $40 million in research funding, including grants from the following organizations.
- Federal Government: NHTSA, FMCSA, FTA, FRA, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. DOT Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health
- State Government: Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles
- Regional Government: New England Transportation Consortium
- Private and Public Foundations: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Arbella Foundation, Santos Foundation
- Private Industry: State Farm, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Highway Safety
Fisher’s current research interests are in human factors and surface transportation, especially automated vehicles, distraction, drowsiness, driver state monitoring, drug and alcohol impairment, crash analyses, traffic engineering countermeasures (e.g., dynamic speed feedback signs, flashing yellow arrow, advance yield markings), and training across the modes: passenger vehicles, heavy trucks, buses, rail, cyclists, pedestrians, and micromobility. He has helped develop training programs for novice drivers that reduce crashes and near crashes among ADHD teens by 40% over the year following training, that double glance behaviors of older drivers at intersections, and that increase drivers understanding of the operational design domain of automated vehicles. Fisher is the editor of three handbooks, including the Handbook of Driving Simulation for Engineering, Medicine, and Psychology, is working on a fourth handbook, the Handbook of Vulnerable Road Users, and has more than 500 scientific publications and presentations.
He has served on the editorial boards of the leading journals in human factors, has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Human Factors Committee, and currently serves on a number of TRB committees.
Fisher has been asked to speak as an expert on transportation safety to state and federal officials (MassDOT, U.S. Congress, National Institutes of Health, National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. DOT Volpe Center), to foundations (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety), to nationally convened expert panels (State Farm), and to international conventions as a speaker (Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, China, Canada, United Kingdom).