2025 Winner: Tom Dingus

Since starting his career in 1984, Tom Dingus has been involved in safety-related research, testing, design and evaluation to improve the safety of all aspects of roadway systems. His accomplishments include pioneering research methods and developing the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) into the largest group of driver safety researchers in the world.

Dingus is perhaps best known for his trailblazing research method of developing and deploying instrumented vehicles for the on-road safety evaluation of causal factors leading to crashes, near-crashes and countermeasures. This research has grown to include cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and e-scooters. A large step forward in this research was the development of low-cost, portable data collection systems which have now been installed in thousands of vehicles. These naturalistic driving studies are currently conducted across the globe and are considered an indispensable element of determining crash causation for all types of roadways, vehicles, and road users.

One critical aspect of Dingus’s impact on highway safety is the thousands of students who have worked at VTTI, many of whom are still in the field. The Institute’s alumni currently work for the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Transportation Safety Board, state Departments of Transportation, car companies, tech companies like Waymo, major suppliers of vehicle and roadside equipment, consultancies and start-ups. They are making their own impact on highway safety every day.

Dingus has left an indelible mark on transportation safety, from pioneering transformative research methods resulting in decades of safety improvements to establishing a globally recognized institute which works to solve today’s greatest highway safety challenges.