Volpe Technical Experts
Dr. Aviva Brecher,
Aviva Brecher is an applied physicist with degrees from MIT (B.S and M.S.) and UC-San Diego (Ph.D.). She has broad professional and technical experience from her work in academia, business, and government. Prior to joining the Volpe Center on 1986, she worked on topics ranging from lunar and planetary exploration (recognized in naming Asteroid Brecher 4242), to technical consulting on nuclear waste isolation and space launch safety.
Dr. Brecher is a national expert in transportation Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE). Volpe Center work highlights include: risk analysis and management (RA/RM) for licensing commercial space launches; optimization of drug interdiction; the safety of aging aircraft, and future global air traffic control, including GPS-based navigation; measurement and control of the environmental and safety impacts of electromagnetic fields (EMF) and radiation (EMR) in transportation systems and facilities, and the development of safety standards as DOT member of interagency committees and of the IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES) and Committee on Man and Radiation (COMAR); outreach and communication on transportation futures, and on health effects and risk tradeoffs; safety analysis and regulatory development for maglev and high-speed rail; strategic planning and technology-based forecasting; advanced research planning, innovation and technology transfer; R&T crosscuts on advanced materials and infrastructure renewal for RITA, DOT and the National Science and Technology Council; transportation applications of Remote Sensing, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and the safety of Plastics and Composite Intensive Vehicles (PCIV); and transportation security issues, such as decontamination and recovery after bioattack and technologies for multimodal transportation protection.
Dr Brecher has served on numerous technical and policy committees for professional societies and standards association, including: the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Physics Society (APS) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She was elected and served as Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer, Congressional Science Fellow for the APS, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow, and Fellow of the APS and AAAS.
