Richard Hanowski Honored with SAE International L. Ray Buckendale Lecture Award

WARRENDALE, PA--Dec. 16, 2011: Dr. Richard J. Hanowski, Director, Center for Truck & Bus Safety, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), was honored with the SAE International L. Ray Buckendale Award during the 2011 SAE International Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress and Exhibition. Dr. Hanowski presented his technical paper, "The Naturalistic Study of Distracted Driving:  Moving from Research to Practice."

The award provides for an annual lecture that deals with automotive ground vehicles for either on- or off-road operation in either commercial or military service. The intent is to provide procedures and data useful in formulating solutions in commercial vehicle design, manufacture, operation, and maintenance.

L. Ray Buckendale, 1946 SAE President, by his character and work, endeared himself to all who were associated with him. Foremost among his many interests was the desire to develop the potential abilities in young people. To this end, the lecture is directed primarily to the needs of young engineers and students with emphasis on practical aspects of the topic.

Sponsorship of the lecture is rotated among companies within the commercial vehicle industry. Current sponsors include: ArvinMeritor, Inc.; Cummins, Inc.; Eaton Corporation and TRW Automotive.

Since joining VTTI in 1996, Dr. Hanowski has served several roles with the Institute including Research Scientist for the Safety and Human Factors Engineering Group and Leader for the Truck and Bus Safety Group before being appointed Director for the Center of Truck and Bus Safety in 2005. He has served as Principal Investigator or Co-PI on over 70 projects, managing $30M in contract research.  Also, he has successfully assembled, led and managed multi-disciplinary and multi-organizational research teams. Dr. Hanowski has authored more than 180 publications including journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, and technical reports including several that are specifically directed at "Driver Distraction."  In April of 2010, he was selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to serve as one of six international experts to provide insight on the topic of Driver Distraction for an ongoing Federally-funded US-EU joint effort.  Dr. Hanowski earned his PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2000.  

SAE International is a global association of more than 134,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries. SAE International's core competencies are life-long learning and voluntary consensus standards development. SAE International's charitable arm is the SAE Foundation, which supports many programs, including A World In Motion® and the Collegiate Design Series. SAE-