Session No. 7A

MASH Implementation

This session will provide both a national and a PA specific perspective on MASH Implementation progress and status.

Moderator: Bill Houpt, Federal Highway Administration

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) MASH Implementation

• Hassan Raza, Standards and Criteria Unit Manager, PennDOT

Recent MASH Crash Testing

• Roger Bligh, Senior Research Engineer, Texas A&M Transportation Institute

National Perspective on MASH Implementation

• Chiara Dobrovolny, Research Scientist, Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Bios

Hassan Raza is Standards and Criteria Unit Manager in the Harrisburg Central office. He joined PennDOT in August 2017 after working with FHWA for 38 years in different positions, including Deputy Director of Field Services for 13 northeast States, Division Administrator in Delaware and Maryland, and Assistant Division Administrator in NJ and MD. Prior to that Hassan has held several program and technical positions including Planner, Area Engineer, Design Engineer, Pavement Engineer, and Team Leader for traffic/ITS, safety, research, T2, maintenance, construction, etc. As USDOT representative, Hassan also served in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan advising host governments on all aspects of highways including highway design, traffic and safety.

Roger Bligh is a Senior Research Engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. He has 35 years of experience as a roadside safety researcher specializing in the design, analysis, testing, and evaluation of highway safety structures. Bligh has made contributions to the design of numerous roadside safety devices including breakaway sign supports, work zone traffic control devices, portable concrete barrier systems, guardrails, bridge rails, guardrail/bridge rail transitions, guardrail end treatments, and median barriers.

Chiara Dobrovolny is a Research Scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She has more than 15 years of experience in the field of structures with an emphasis on occupant protection and highway safety. Dobrovolny's research aimed at reducing the risk of injury in motor-vehicle crashes by investigating the causes and patterns of injury in real-world crashes, by performing computational simulations to evaluate the human mechanical response to mechanical loading, and by developing criteria for assessing the occupant injury risk. She is involved with the management of the Roadside Safety Pooled Fund Group to coordinate MASH testing and research needs of the 27 Group Members, to establish prioritization related to MASH implementation.