Is
LA Ready for Self-Driving Cars?
Assemblymember
Adrin Nazarian hosts a provocative panel discussion on the future of cars in
Los Angeles and how government should prepare for this new exciting technological
revolution.
Expert
Panelists:
Colin
Peppard | Office
of Extraordinary Innovation Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (LA Metro)
Dr.
Sheila Tejada |
Professor, University of Southern California
Dr.
Rajit Gadh |
Founder and Director, Smart Grid Energy Research Center
Dr.
Bernard C. Soriano
| Deputy Director, California Department of Motor Vehicles
When
& Where:
Thursday
July 14, 2016
6 – 8
p.m.
High
Tech Los Angeles
17111
Victory Blvd
Van
Nuys, CA 91406
Bio
of Panelists:
Colin
Peppard is
Manager for Outreach and Strategic Relationships with the Office of
Extraordinary Innovation (OEI) at LA Metro, the transportation agency that
serves the 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. His work is focused on
Metro’s relationship with the private sector, and how the nation’s
third-largest public transportation system can form partnerships to improve
mobility in LA County. This includes managing the agency’s r Unsolicited
Proposal Process, evaluating the potential to develop public-private
partnerships around Metro’s individual project plans, and thinking about the
role of emerging technologies in improving and expanding Metro’s service.
Previously,
Mr. Peppard served as a policy advisor and senior legislative aide for U.S.
Senator Thomas R. Carper, of Delaware. In this role, Colin oversaw policy
development and legislative strategy to support the Senator’s work as the
Chair/Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, including negotiations for the FAST Act and
MAP-21 federal transportation bills. As part of this, Colin had a lead role in
drafting several provisions to facilitate capital financing of public
infrastructure, including through expansion of toll-based revenue sources and
utilization of public private partnerships.
Before
he began with Senator Carper, Colin was the Deputy Director of Federal
Transportation Policy with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) where
he focused on advancing policies and projects with mutual mobility and
environmental benefits, and authored several publications on this topic. Has
run transportation policy programs for several other national NGOs, and is a
graduate of the University of Virginia.
Dr.
Sheila Tejada is
currently a professor in the computer science department at the University of
Southern California, in Los Angeles, where she teaches courses and performs
research applying artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics in
education. As the academic community leader for Anita Borg Institute LA, she is
passionate about empowering a diverse tech community in Los Angeles. In 1993
Dr. Tejada received her Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the
University of California, Los Angeles. She was awarded her master’s and
doctoral degrees in computer science from the University of Southern California
in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Prof. Tejada has developed awarding-winning
robots, such as the robot soccer team DreamTeam, that was the first world
champions at the RoboCup International Robot Soccer Competion in Nagoya, Japan.
She also chaired the RoboCup US Open 2004 in New Orleans, and is a speaker for
the US State Department Speaker Program, delivering interactive presentations
on artificial intelligence and robotics for young audiences around the world.
Dr.
Rajit Gadh is a
professor of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at
UCLA, founder and director the Smart Grid Energy Research Center or SMERC (http://smartgrid.ucla.edu) and founder and
director of the UCLA WINMEC Consortium (http://winmec.ucla.edu).
Dr. Gadh has a doctorate degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a
master’s from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur, all
in engineering. He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been
an assistant, associate and full professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and was a visiting researcher at Stanford University.
Dr.
Gadh's current research interests include modeling and control of Smart Grids,
wireless monitoring and control of distribution and consumer-premise power
grids, electric vehicle aggregation, modeling and control, optimized EV
charging under grid and local constraints, Grid-tovehicle, Vehicle-to-grid and
Grid-to-home architectures, automation and home area network for Demand
Response, Micro-grid modeling and control, and, wireless-sensor and RFID
middleware architectures. Dr. Gadh is author of over 150 articles in journals
and conference proceedings and four patents. His team has developed the
WINSmartEV™ and WINSmartGrid™ research platforms at UCLA.
He is a
fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He has received the
National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award, NSF Research Initiation Award,
NSF-Lucent Industry Ecology Fellow Award, Society of Automotive Engineers Ralph
R. Teetor Educational Award, IEEE WTS Second Best Student Paper Award, ASME
Kodak Best Technical Paper Award, AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellow Award,
Engineering Education Foundation Research Initiation Award, the William Mong
Fellowship from University of Hong Kong, and other accolades in his career. He
has lectured and given keynote/distinguished addresses worldwide in countries
such as Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Spain,
Holland, Hong Kong, Japan, S. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and, Thailand. Dr. Gadh
serves as advisor to a handful of technology-based startups.
Dr.
Bernard C. Soriano
is a deputy director for the California Department of Motor Vehicles and is in
charge of the department’s autonomous vehicles program. He has over 30 years of
engineering and management experience in the private and public sector. He
previously held engineering and management positions at Hughes Space and
Communications, Inc. in El Segundo, where he designed satellite attitude
control systems and was involved in their launch missions. He was also
the assistant technical director at the USGA Research and Test Center in New
Jersey. In the public sector, Bernard was the chief information officer
for the Office of the Secretary of State and was the information technology task
force leader on Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review.
Bernard
was also a member of the part-time faculty at the California State University,
Sacramento, where he taught courses in the College of Engineering and the
College of Business Administration.
Bernard
holds a Ph.D. in engineering from U.C. Irvine, a M.S. in mechanical engineering
from the University of Southern California, and a B.S. in mechanical and
aeronautical engineering from U.C. Davis. He also holds an M.B.A. from California
State University, Sacramento. He was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy
Reserve and has numerous publications and patents. His honors and
achievements include selection as a finalist in the NASA astronaut program.
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