Distinguished Lecture Series with Louise Zhang, Ph.D.

Speaker(s): Louise Zhang, Ph.D., Vice President of Safety and Systems — Cruise

Presentation Title: How Autonomous Vehicles Make Our Roads Safer

Date/Time: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 | 1:00 PM ET

Continuing Education Units (CEU): .1*
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Abstract: We are living in an exciting time where autonomous vehicles (AVs) are at the forefront of transportation technology. Technology comes with its share of disruption, and changes like driverless cars can take time to settle in. However, we are already beginning to see some of the benefits that driverless cars offer to road safety and the broader accessibility of transportation.

In this seminar, Dr. Louise Zhang will share the aggregate safety performance of the Cruise AV fleet and discuss how they achieve safety in individual driving scenarios. They will also detail the framework that governs Cruise’s safety metrics, safety decision making and risk management processes, and the methodologies and approaches that help improve safety performance. Finally, they will expand on the continuous feedback and learning mechanisms that have been adopted to enable rapid AV capability development and fleet scaling while maintaining a high bar of safety performance.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Louise Zhang is Cruise’s Vice President of Safety and Systems. She is responsible for the safety and validation of the autonomous vehicles. Her leadership is instrumental in the successful design, tests and commercial deployment of the self-driving technologies.

Louise has dedicated her career to making cars and roads safer. Before Cruise, Louise was Senior Director of Engineering at Lucid Motors where she oversaw overall vehicle safety and regulatory compliance. Prior to that, she was the head of Tesla’s Vehicle Safety Team. Outside of the automotive industry, Louise has worked as a forensic consultant, advising on litigation involving complex product liability cases.

Louise holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology. She also took classes from the Ross Business School MBA program at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.