Professor, Transport Safety at the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London

Nicola Christie is a behavioural scientist with a background in psychology researching transport safety and injury prevention through a public health lens. Her research encompasses the aetiology, epidemiology and impacts of unintentional injury and implications for policy and practice. Her research has also focused on the relationship between area-based deprivation and road casualties, occupational road safety especially associated with working in the gig economy (for example, people delivering food on motorised two wheelers) and research using computer vision to understand near miss data for cyclists. Recently she has developed an interest in how safety impacts sustainable and healthy mobility. Experienced in using exploratory, ethnographic techniques to understand complex social phenomena and human factors associated with the causes and consequences of injury and mixed methods approaches to evaluation including natural experiments, quasi-experimental and qualitative designs. Her work experience includes 16 years at Transport Research Laboratory, 10 years at Surrey University and time as a senior consultant at MVA (now Systra). Nicola is currently Director of Engagement for the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering and has a strong involvement in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda. She has previously held other key roles including Director of the Centre of Transport Studies (first female), Director of Research (first female), Director of the first pan UCL Transport Institute (first female). She leads postgraduate teaching modules on Transport and Health and Transport and Behaviour Change. She is currently President of the London Road Safety Council (first female), a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, an IATSS Overseas Fellow, a member of the Department for Transports College of Experts and a member of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.

Deputy Director, Global Urban Mobility Director
Global Health & Road Safety Program, World Resources Institute

Claudia has more than 20 years of experience in the Transport sector. She leads research, policy and project implementation in sustainable mobility including walking, cycling, mass transportation, freight, electric vehicles and urban design. Within these areas of work, she focuses on improving quality of life by improving road safety, air quality, climate change, and equity. Claudia has served in the Steering Committee in charge of organizing the Third Global Ministerial Meeting in Road Safety in Sweden 2020 and is part of the current Steering Committee in charge of organizing the Fourth Global Ministerial Meeting in Road Safety in Morocco 2025. Claudia has been recognized as a Remarkable Women in Transport 2019 by GIZ. She has been honored by Brazilian Government with the Maua Merit Medal. Claudia is a lawyer, trained in Germany in Transport Management. In 2008 graduated with an Executive Master of Public Administration and a Master of Arts in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Public Administration at Syracuse University, New York, in the United States. In 2022 Claudia completed an Executive Master’s in Behavioral Change at Harvard University.

Coordinator

Member of the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences (IATSS) Professor
Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University

Dr. Nakamura specializes in traffic engineering, highway engineering, and transportation planning. He is engaged in research and practical implementation across a wide range of fields, including road and highway planning and design methodology, traffic safety policy for roads, and transportation management. Dr. Nakamura is a Steering Committee member and a vice-chair of Scientific Committee of the World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS). He also serves as Chairperson of the Japan Society of Traffic Engineers (JSTE), and is an Advisor to the Roundabout Promotion Council. Furthermore, he has served on committees for government organizations, including the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) and the National Police Agency, as well as for numerous road authorities and expressway companies.

Panelist

Chief Executive, International Road Federation (IRF)

Susanna is the Chief Executive of the International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva, Switzerland, a global organisation with the mission to promote the development of road networks that enable access to and a sustainable mobility for all (www.irfnet.ch). A well-recognised expert with 18 years of experience in the transport sector, Susanna is an untiring advocate for road safety. She has served as Chairperson of the “Safer Roads and Mobility” Pillar of the UN Road Safety Collaboration Group (UNRSC) and lends her supports to a number of other initiatives supporting the road safety agenda.Building capacity at all levels and facilitating multi-stakeholders’ partnerships are central in her work and that of IRF. Susanna is involved in Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) federating 57 leading transport stakeholders. She currently serves as a Steering Committee Member and has co-led the WG road safety and the WG data sharing. Susanna is part of the International Coordinating Council of the US Transportation Research Board (TRB).

Panelist

Direcotor, Tilkon Research ＆ Consulting

Wouter Van den Berghe has two Master’s degrees in Engineering from Ghent University (1982, 1984) and a PhD in Transport Policy from University College London (2022). He has 40 years of professional experience in working with policymakers, private companies, non-profit organisations and universities. Wouter has an in-depth understanding of road safety, education and policy issues both at national and European level. He is considered as a world expert in the field of road safety performance indicators. Wouter has produced over hundred publications (including a range of books and reports in several languages) and has given numerous presentations all over the world. Wouter Van den Berghe was the Research Director of Vias institute (Brussels) between 2014 and 2022, where he focused on developing international partnerships, participating in international organisations (FERSI, UNSRC, HUMANIST, …) and managing international projects. He is now an independent researcher and consultant, mainly involved in international road safety projects. Recent projects and initiatives led by Wouter Van den Berghe include ESRA, ERSO, Baseline, Trendline, and Westbelt. He is also involved in road safety projects in Africa and Asia. He participated in the international IATSS project on Traffic Safety Culture and received in 2023 the IATSS award for the Best Paper in IATSS Research.

Panelist

Associate Professor, Civil Engineering/Transportation, Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, USA

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Lebdeh’s research and teaching interests include traffic operations, transportation system sustainability, and public health. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. With 34 years of experience in transportation systems operations and planning, Dr. Abu-Lebdeh has held academic appointments at Michigan State University, the University of Kentucky, and the American University of Sharjah. His industry experience includes work with Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Dr. Abu-Lebdeh’s current research focuses on integrating public health considerations into the development of transportation facilities and systems.

Panelist

Research associate, Department of Human and Social Systems of the Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo

Azusa Toriumi (formerly Goto) has been a research associate in the Department of Human and Social Systems of the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo since 2019. She received her Ph. D in engineering while working as an assistant professor in the Education and Research Center for Sustainable Co-Development of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Nagoya University. She had worked at the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management (NILIM) under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (NILIM) (2017~2019). She specializes in traffic engineering. She serves as a co-chair of Special Interest Group C2 “Urban Transport Operations” in the World Conference on Transport Research Society, a member of the Highway Capacity and Quality Service Group in Japan Society of Traffic Engineers, etc. She has been engaged in projects on international comparison of traffic safety by the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences (IATSS) since 2016. In these projects, she conducted field observations and interviews in several countries, such as Qatar, the United Aram Emirates, and the Philippines, and led the international collaborative survey (Country Fact Survey) on the facts related to legislation, enforcement, and education for traffic safety.

Moderator

Member of the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences (IATSS) Professor
City and Transportation Planning at Department of Civil and Environment Engineering, Waseda University

Akinori Morimoto is a professor in city and transportation planning at department of civil and environment engineering at Waseda University since 2014. After graduating from graduate school of Waseda University in 1989, he worked as a research associate for Waseda and Utsunomiya University, as a visiting scholar for MIT and most recently as an associate professor and professor at Utsunomiya University until 2014. He is the former President of the City Planning Institute of Japan and currently serves as managing director in The Japan Research Center for Transport Policy. His academic field is related to the strategies to integrate the land use and transportation toward the sustainable city. He has supervised many projects in national and local government in Japan, and has been invited as a keynote speaker at several international conferences. Recent publications include "City and Transportation Planning; An Integrated Approach" published by Routledge in 2021.

Presenter

Senior Transport Specialist (Road Asset Management)
Asian Development Bank

Dr. Michael Anyala serves as the Senior Transport Specialist (Road Asset Management) within the Emerging Areas Team at the Transport Sector Office of the Asian Development Bank’s Sectors Group. With a wealth of international experience in the transport sector, he collaborates with development organizations, government entities, private sector firms, and research institutions. His work at the ADB encompasses a range of focus areas, including offering policy guidance, incubating new investment opportunities, and enhancing project preparation and implementation. His efforts are particularly concentrated on advancing transport’s emerging areas, such as decarbonization of transport, improving road safety, enabling climate resilience of transport systems, and strengthening infrastructure asset management. Dr. Anyala earned his Ph.D. and Master of Science degrees in Road Management from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Presenter

Director, Team 1, Transportation Group, Infrastructure Management Department, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Yasuhiro SUHARA received his master’s degree from Department of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo. After joining JICA, he mainly engaged in project management related to infrastructure (urban development, transportation) projects. Currently, he manages the road sector projects in JICA including road traffic safety. He try to explore the collaboration with the private company who engage the traffic safety activity in developing country for sustainable traffic safety activities in developing countries.