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Speaker Biography

Stephen Ridella is the Safety Planning and Regulatory Reporting Director at Zoox, Inc. He is responsible for implementation of strategies related to the safe development and operation of the Zoox purpose-built, fully autonomous, ridesharing vehicle.

Prior to joining Zoox, Stephen spent over 17 years at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) holding various positions, the most recent being Director of the Office of Defects Investigation where he oversaw investigation of safety defects and management of all vehicle and equipment recalls. In addition to this position, in his tenure at NHTSA, Stephen was the Division Chief of Human Injury Research as well as the Director of the Office of Vehicle Crashworthiness Research. Stephen has also held industry positions at the General Motors Research Labs doing crash injury research, EASi Engineering coordinating projects in occupant crash simulation and TRW Automotive (now ZF) conducting vehicle safety and restraint systems design and performance. He has published extensively on crash data analysis, vehicle and occupant crash simulation techniques, and impact injury research throughout his career.

Stephen holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Microbiology and Bioengineering respectively from the University of Michigan. He also holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Wayne State University in Detroit and earned a Ph.D. in Machine and Vehicle Systems from the Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences at Chalmers Technological University in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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