Profiles

Mr. Morgan joined NCAC in 2003 after spending 20 years with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. There, he worked to show the feasibility of using air bags in frontal collisions. He also helped develop the side-impact dummy and the injury criteria used in the United States' side impact standard. In the early 1990s, he set up a network of leading universities to study the biomechanics of impact trauma. In 1996, Mr. Morgan assumed leadership of the New Car Assessment Program in the United States.

Mr. Morgran holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from North Carolina State University.

Mr. Mader joined NCAC in 1996 and currently serves as manager of NCAC's High-Performance Computing Laboratory. Mr. Mader has extensive knowledge of advanced computing systems and parallel computers and is a certified IRIX system administrator. He maintains NCAC's high-performance computing facilities and interacts extensively with computer hardware, software and crash code developers to benchmark and upgrade system efficiencies.

Mr. Mader earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from The George Washington University's School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Mr. Mohan is a senior research scientist at the NCAC. He specializes in issues related to vehicle structure and occupant safety performance. His experience includes setting vehicle crash strategies, vehicle design/development process and testing to meet regulatory compliance, consumer metrics and OEM requirements for crashworthiness. He has expertise in the application of computer simulation (CAE) to vehicle crashworthiness and anti-ram barrier development. Mr. Mohan is also actively involved in crash testing at the Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory. He has conducted a wide range of full-scale crash tests and subsystem component level tests to support the research needs of NCAC.

Prior to joining NCAC, Mr. Mohan was consulting as a lead analysis engineer for safety and structure integration on assignment at General Motors Technical Center. His work involved using finite element methods and physical tests to meet GM vehicle technical specifications in the design of body structures for front, side, rear and rollover crash protection. He was a member of the design/development team for several vehicles and team representative to the GM Crash/Safety Focus Group.

Mr. Mohan earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering (1996) from Bangalore University (India), an M.S. in mechanical engineering (1999) from Tuskegee University and is currently pursuing a D.Sc. degree in Transportation Safety engineering at The George Washington University.

Ms. Samaha is at the NCAC while on leave of absence from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agency. As a senior research engineer at the agency, she has developed and implemented programs in advanced side crash protection, vehicle upper interior protection, vehicle and restraint system model development, crash test instrumentation, and signal analysis. Recently, she has completed research that served as basis for the current federal side crash rulemaking upgrade (FMVSS 214). The research included characterizing side crash conditions and occupant attributes and injuries, developing an oblique pole side impact test to effectively address head trauma, working with dummy manufacturers to develop side impact dummy upgrades, finite element modeling to support test procedure development, and dummy and countermeasure evaluation and vehicle fleet performance crash tests.

Ms. Samaha earned a B.S. and Masters of electrical engineering from Rice University and is currently pursuing a D.Sc. degree in Transportation Safety engineering at The George Washington University.

Mr. Nagabhushana joined NCAC in 2005 and focuses on vehicle safety research. His research work is on improving child safety protection, improving roof strength in all vehicles, and validating of NCAC vehicle models. Prior to joining NCAC, Mr. Nagabhushana was consulting as a Safety Performance Engineer at the General Motors Technical Center. He was responsible for providing design strategies and verifying the design using finite element methods and by physical tests to meet vehicle technical specifications and consumer metrics.

Mr. Nagabhushana earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University (India), an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Texas at El Paso, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Transportation Safety Engineering at The George Washington University.

Mr. Delaigue's work for NCAC focuses on crash avoidance and driver's assistance projects. He is currently researching the potential hazard of excessive roadside edge wedge and recently conducted research on predicting vehicle braking distances.

Mr. Delaigue earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the National Engieneering School if Mechanics and Energetics (Valenciennes, France) and an M.S. in transportation safety engineering from The George Washington University.

Mr. Brown joined NCAC in 2000, working with the modeling and simulation team to create several vehicle computer models. As manager of NCAC's Vehicle Modeling Laboratory, Mr. Brown organizes and oversees all vehicle modeling tasks, trains new team members and maintains and updates NCAC's vehicle modeling hardware and software. He is expert in a number of computer modeling programs, including AUTOCAD, MSC.Patran, HyperMesh and LS-DYNA.

Mr. Brown received a B.A. in journalism from California State University — Sacramento.

Mrs. Seaton joined the NCAC Library in 1995 and maintains all physical and operational aspects of this comprehensive collection. She also works with the library's Avid editing system and media conversion software and has also worked with client-server environments, systems support and fundamental database administration. Mrs. Seaton is a student in GW's School of Business and Public Management.

Ms. Behrs serves as a software and engineering film technician in the NCAC Film Library, handling all material related to FHWA and NHTSA crash test films and reports. Ms. Behrs earned a B.B.A. from The George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

For the past four years, Chris Story has been performing the daily maintenance and operational functions for the crash laboratory associated with the FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center. He is an expert in preparing vehicles for full-scale crash testing. Mr. Story has overseen and ensured the correct installation of roadside barriers for crash testing. He has set up pendulum for component impact testing. Chris has machined and welded structures as needed for component and full-scale crash testing. He has installed data acquisition systems and measuring devices on vehicles and barriers for crash testing. He also is responsible for preparing high speed digital camera for crash testing.

For the past Three years, Michael Mosser has been performing the daily maintenance and operational functions for the crash laboratory associated with the FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center. He is an expert in preparing vehicles for full-scale crash testing. He has set up pendulum for component impact testing. Michael has machined and welded structures as needed for component and full-scale crash testing. He has installed data acquisition systems and measuring devices on vehicles and barriers for crash testing.

Mr. Arispe joined NCAC in 2004 and is currently a Testing Engineer at the FHWA Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory (FOIL).  His research focus is in the finite element modeling and simulation field applied to transportation safety.  Using reverse engineering methods, he developed detailed vehicle computer models for use in assessing and improving their crashworthiness.  Mr. Arispe gained extensive knowledge on vehicle structure and automotive technology by taking courses at Montgomery College and The George Washington University.  He also has experience in automotive repair and welding.  His current work at FOIL involves prepping test vehicles and barriers, setting up instrumentation and high speed cameras, and assisting in performing crash tests.

Mr. Arispe earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Systems and Controls from the University of Maryland in 2001.  He is currently pursuing an M.S. degree in Transportation Safety Engineering from The George Washington University.