Mary D. Stearns, Ph. D.
Dr. Mary D. Stearns is a program manager in the Human Factors Division of the U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center). She manages the user acceptance work at the Volpe Center for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). She provides program management and technical support to the NHTSA Office of Vehicle Safety Research to monitor the high priority, multi-year SAfety VEhicle using adaptive Interface Technology (SAVE-IT) program to develop and implement a prototype vehicle-based adaptive interface system to minimize driver distraction through a government-industry cost shared contract.
Dr. Stearns' contributions focus on the social factors influencing the use, operation, and organization of transportation systems and equipment. She leads research on the use of automotive adaptive interface technologies and designs and conducts evaluations of user acceptance of automotive collision avoidance and roadway departure warning systems. Her focus on user acceptance also addresses the issues of a special user group, older drivers. Dr. Stearns is also the Executive Agent for the DOT's Human Factors Coordinating Committee (HFCC). Dr. Stearns supports the Volpe Center's Human Resources Task Group as needed and has served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Volpe Center.
Her previous assignments include leading the Volpe Center's cockpit human factors program and designing and carrying out a longitudinal effort to assess the impact of advanced technology on transit operations. She led a team which developed a PC-based tool to evaluate and record human factors considerations for FAA equipment, provided the human factors plan for a proposed tower ATC upgrade, and provided Access-based tools for acquiring and archiving data on current air traffic control activities. She documented the differential impacts of the energy shortage by user category. Other research includes analyses of alcohol-related recreational boating fatalities, use of safety belts, general aviation fatalities, marine crew fatigue, identification of the characteristics of the future FAA maintenance work force, and analyses of the impacts of crew scheduling and fatigue on the railroad industry. She has extensive experience developing data collection and analyses strategies and has consulted on, as well as designed, numerous data collection instruments and surveys.
Dr. Stearns received a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston University where she held Woodrow Wilson and National Defense Education Act Title IV fellowships. As a research assistant at Boston University Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, she documented the social impacts of the relocation for interstate highway construction in Boston. She taught in the sociology department at Boston University and was Assistant Professor and Urban Studies Coordinator at Newton College of the Sacred Heart (subsumed into Boston College). She co-authored Social Change in Urban America, a text and workbook.
Phone: 617/494-2617
E-mail: mary.stearns@dot.gov
