Bryan Reimer, PhD
Research Scientist / Engineer, AgeLab MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
- Cambridge MA
Dr. Reimer is a researcher, advisor, author, and speaker on technology, human behavior, and policy shaping the future of mobility and AI.
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Biography
Dr. Reimer is a prolific author, sought-after speaker, and recognized innovator whose insights are regularly featured in the media. Guided by a pragmatic possibilist mindset, he focuses on ensuring that technology augments human capability, advances safety, improves affordability, and benefits society.
He is the founder and co-director of two academic-industry partnerships: the Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) Consortium, which explores how drivers interact with emerging vehicle technologies, and the Advanced Human Factors Evaluator for Attentional Demand (AHEAD) Consortium, which is developing a holistic approach to driver attention support.
Dr. Reimer is the author of over 350 publications. His research has been sponsored by over 30 organizations and foundations spanning automotive, technology, insurance, consumer products, and pharmaceutical, including multiple Fortune 500 companies. This reflects the broad relevance of his work across industries, shaping the future of how we live, move, and work.
Outside of MIT, he serves on the Research Advisory Board of Autoliv, advises AI Sweden, and previously advised Affectiva through its acquisition by Smart Eye. In 2024, he was appointed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to the Department of Transportation’s Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee (TTAC), where he served as Vice Chair of the AI Subcommittee. That same year, he was also appointed to the FAA’s Human Factors in Aviation Safety Aviation Rulemaking Committee (HF Task Force ARC).
His 2018 TEDx talk, “There’s More to the Safety of Driverless Cars Than AI,” underscores the human dimensions of road safety beyond automation alone. His 2025 book with futurist Magnus Lindkvist, “How to Make AI Useful: Moving Beyond the Hype to Real Progress in Business, Society, and Life,” argues that AI’s true value emerges when we integrate it thoughtfully into human systems—augmenting, not replacing, human capabilities.
Research Focus
Human-Centered Systems & Quality of Life
Designing systems, services, and policies that enhance human well-being across work, home, and society.
Intelligent & Autonomous Supply Chains
AI-driven, data-centric, and increasingly autonomous decision systems for supply chain planning and execution.
Areas of Expertise
Education
University of Rhode Island
PhD
2003
University of Rhode Island
MS
Manufacturing Engineering
1999
University of Rhode Island
BS
Industrial Engineering
1997
Affiliations
- MIT AgeLab : Researcher
- Autoliv : Advisor
- AI Sweden : Advisor
- FAA HF Task Force ARC : Member
Languages
- English
Media Appearances
Driverless Waymo taxis over-run Atlanta neighborhood
NBC News tv
2026-05-15
Residents say they saw roughly 50 driverless Waymo cars come through the neighborhood with no passengers and no apparent reason for being there. Video captures the chaos when a common traffic street sign was put out to try to keep the cars away. NBC News’ Tom Costello reports.
MIT’s Bryan Reimer proposes a rethink on highly automated driving
Automotive News online
2025-06-08
Reimer further explores the nuances involved in distracted driving discussions and the business models associated with fully autonomous driving. Finally, as the Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium marks its 10th anniversary, he details the state of transportation research at a time of precarious federal funding.
This technology could make Colorado’s roads safer for bicyclists – but is it reliable?
KUNC online
2025-04-04
Today we revisit our conversation from last summer with Bryan Reimer with the Center for Transportation and Logistics at MIT to learn more. He researches driver behavior, and how humans interact with automatic braking systems and other advanced vehicle technologies.
AI researcher's warning: "There has been a lot of overinvestment"
Dagens Industri [translated from Swedish] online
2025-12-11
Thousands of billions have been invested in AI and many predict that the technology will fundamentally change our lives. But AI researcher Bryan Reimer warns that companies are putting money into the wrong things and dismisses Silicon Valley's dream image of explosive growth. "We should probably separate the financial balloon from the technological development," he tells Di Weekend.
MIT-Toyota collaboration powers driver assistance in millions of vehicles
MIT News
2025-10-15
“AVT was conceptualized over a decade ago as an academic-industry partnership to promote shared investment in real-world, naturalistic data collection, analysis, and collaboration — efforts aimed at advancing safer, more convenient, and more comfortable automobility,” says Bryan Reimer, founder and co-director of AVT.
Tesla Is Urging Drowsy Drivers to Use 'Full Self-Driving'. That Could Go Very Wrong
WIRED online
2025-09-26
Tesla has “evolved its overall driver support features through [software updates] to help mitigate inattention and distraction-related issues,” Bryan Reimer, a research scientist who studies driver assistance technology at MIT's AgeLab, writes in an email. But this latest in-car messaging around FSD feels like a lapse, he says. “The prompt seems highly contrary to research.”
Celebrating an academic-industry collaboration to advance vehicle technology
MIT News online
2025-06-16
Bryan Reimer, founder and co-director of the AVT Consortium, opened the event by remarking that over the decade AVT has collected hundreds of terabytes of data, presented and discussed research with its over 25 member organizations, supported members’ strategic and policy initiatives, published select outcomes, and built AVT into a global influencer with tremendous impact in the automotive industry.
Can Tesla Data Help Us Understand Car Crashes?
The New York Times online
2022-08-18
“This can help separate crashes related to technology from crashes related to driver error,” said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in driver-assistance systems and automated vehicles.
Ethical Standards for Self-Driving Car Testing Are Still in Their Beta Stage
Newsweek online
2021-10-04
Dr. Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation, leads a team that explores the intersection of human behavior and automated driving features in production and future vehicles. In a recent interview, he told Newsweek that the push towards autonomous driving is a balancing act between what autonomous vehicles can do versus what a driver is capable of doing in conjunction with that technology. The goal is to take some of the more routine driving tasks out of the hands of the driver.
Should Tesla Take The Initiative To Better Monitor And Manage Driver Behavior With Autopilot?
Forbes online
2020-01-05
By any account, Tesla’s Autopilot feature has come a long way since being released to consumers through an Over-The-Air (OTA) update just over 4 years ago. At inception, it was at best an incredibly sophisticated bootstrapped system based upon a Mobileye sensing platform and limited processing capabilities.
Speaking Engagements/Featured Conversations
2020 Autonomy Conference - Bryan Reimer
Bryan Reimer’s talk explores how automation in vehicles has evolved—from early experiments a century ago to today’s advanced driver-assistance systems. He examines how features like Autopilot and Super Cruise are changing what drivers do behind the wheel, blurring the line between attention and distraction. Bryan emphasizes that while automation is progressing, human behavior, safety research, and smart policy will determine how—and how fast—true self-driving becomes part of everyday mobility.
Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHNuUCKBJ9A
Cultivating trust in AI with Bryan Reimer
Watch the full episode here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9htikBpEx6E
Automated or Autonomous: What Might Today’s Vehicles Tell Us About the Future? - Bryan Reimer
AI Innovation of Sweden seminar International Outlook: Engineering for an AI fueled future, May 17 2019. The concept of automating vehicles and removing the driver from direct control of the throttle, brake, and steering wheel was first explored nearly 100 years ago. Over the decades since automation has infiltrated the automobile. Today we are closer than ever to realizing aspirations of a century ago, but challenges remain. This talk will center on elements of what is known about automation in the vehicle today and our evolution towards self-driving. Through the talk, results from an ongoing naturalistic study of ADAS and ADS being undertaken as part of the Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) consortium at MIT will be highlighted.
Watch the full episode here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoPs_FbMjE
There’s more to the safety of driverless cars than AI | Bryan Reimer | TEDxWaltham
Traffic safety is, by many measures, a massively under-treated disease and a global public health crisis. Automation and robotics has long been viewed as a key antidote. But how safe will an increasingly automated future on the roads be? Dr. Bryan Reimer, founder of the Advanced Vehicle Technologies Consortium at MIT, argues that our automated future can be very safe – but first we need to plan for the systems that will make it so.
Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnFezqp_2e4
Research Papers
From distraction to support: evolving perspectives on driver attention support and the case for a holistic, context-aware framework
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and BehaviourBryan Reimer, Linda Angell, Alexandria M. Noble, Bruce Mehler, Lee Skrypchuk, Steven Feit , Gregory M. Fitch
2026-06-05
Since the original development of driver distraction guidelines, scientific understanding of driver workload, attention threading, situation awareness, and the influence of driving context has significantly evolved—driven largely by insights from naturalistic driving studies and other research.
Behavior change associated with using partial automation among three samples of drivers during a 4-week field trial
Journal of Safety ResearchIan J. Reagan, Jessica B. Cicchino, Eric R. Teoh, Pnina Gershon , Bryan Reimer, Bruce Mehler
2025-09-01
Partial automation is still evolving. There is need to understand how behavior changes over time as drivers develop familiarity with the technology.
Decoding the silent dialogue: Unveiling driver-pedestrian communication dynamics with a hidden Markov model
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and BehaviourLinda Pipkorn, Joshua Domeyer, Bruce Mehler, Bryan Reimer, Pnina Gershon
2025-02-01
To enable vehicle automation to negotiate in a mixed traffic environment there is a need for formal methods that describe the communication process between drivers and pedestrians.
Changes in glance and hands-on-wheel behaviors when engaging with non-driving-related tasks while using Tesla Autopilot
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and BehaviourLinda Pipkorn, T. Zach Noonan, Bruce Mehler, Bryan Reimer, Pnina Gershon
2025-02-01
Tesla Autopilot is a commercially available partial automation system that can assist drivers with braking, accelerating, and steering. While partial automation systems may increase driver comfort, there is a concern about potential negative behavioral adaptations (e.g., uptake of non-driving-related activities, decreased driver engagement, inattentiveness) which may pose a risk to both the driver and surrounding traffic.
Kinematic cues in driver-pedestrian communication to support safe road crossing
Accident Analysis & PreventionT. Zach Noonan , Pnina Gershon, Josh Domeyer , Bruce Mehler, Bryan Reimer
2023-11-01
Right-of-way negotiation between drivers and pedestrians often relies on explicit (e.g., waving) and implicit (e.g., kinematic) cues that signal intent. Since effective driver-pedestrian communication is important for reducing safety-relevant conflicts, this study uses information theory to identify vehicle kinematic behaviors that provide the greatest information gain and serve as cues for pedestrians to cross safely.
Driver response and recovery following automation initiated disengagement in real-world hands-free driving
Traffic Injury PreventionPnina Gershon, Bruce Mehler, Bryan Reimer
2023-03-29
Advanced driver assistance systems are increasingly available in consumer vehicles, making the study of drivers’ behavioral adaptation and the impact of automation beneficial for driving safety. Concerns over driver’s being out-of-the-loop, coupled with known limitations of automation, has led research to focus on time-critical, system-initiated disengagements.
People must retain control of autonomous vehicles
NatureAshley Nunes, Bryan Reimer & Joseph F. Coughlin
2018-04-06
Last month, for the first time, a pedestrian was killed in an accident involving a self-driving car. A sports-utility vehicle controlled by an autonomous algorithm hit a woman who was crossing the road in Tempe, Arizona. The safety driver inside the vehicle was unable to prevent the crash.
Glass half-full: On-road glance metrics differentiate crashes from near-crashes in the 100-Car data
Accident Analysis & PreventionBobbie D. Seppelt, Sean Seaman, Joonbum Lee, Linda S. Angell, Bruce Mehler, Bryan Reimer
2017-08-05
Much of the driver distraction and inattention work to date has focused on concerns over drivers removing their eyes from the forward roadway to perform non-driving-related tasks, and its demonstrable link to safety consequences when these glances are timed at inopportune moments. This extensive literature has established, through the analyses of glance from naturalistic datasets, a clear relationship between eyes-off-road, lead vehicle closing kinematics, and near-crash/crash involvement.
Assessing the impact of typeface design in a text-rich automotive user interface
ErgonomicsBryan Reimer, Bruce Mehler, Jonathan Dobres, Joseph F. Coughlin, Steve Matteson, David Gould, Nadine Chahine & Vladimir Levantovsky
2014-07-30
Text-rich driver–vehicle interfaces are increasingly common in new vehicles, yet the effects of different typeface characteristics on task performance in this brief off-road based glance context remains sparsely examined. Subjects completed menu selection tasks while in a driving simulator. Menu text was set either in a ‘humanist’ or ‘square grotesque’ typeface.
Monitoring, managing, and motivating driver safety and well-being
IEEE Pervasive ComputingJoseph F. Coughlin, Bryan Reimer, Bruce Mehler
2011-07-21
The AwareCar platform uses ambient intelligence concepts and pervasive computing technologies to detect driver state (stress, fatigue, inattention), display this information to the driver, and support in-vehicle systems to improve driver performance and safety.
Patents
Method for advanced and low cost cross traffic alert, related processing system, cross traffic alert system and vehicle
US10242272B2
2019-03-26
A sequence of images obtained by a camera mounted on a vehicle is processed in order to generate Optical Flow data including a list of Motion Vectors being associated with respective features in the sequence of images. The Optical Flow data is analyzed to calculate a Vanishing Point by calculating the mean point of all intersections of straight lines passing through motion vectors lying in a road. An Horizontal Filter subset is determined taking into account the Vanishing Point and a Bound Box list from a previous frame in order to filter from the Optical Flow the horizontal motion vectors. The subset of Optical Flow is clustered to generate the Bound Box list retrieving the moving objects in a scene. The Bound Box list is sent to an Alert Generation device and an output video shows the input scene where the detected moving objects are surrounded by a Bounding Box.
Event Appearances
Can AI Make Us Better?
September 2025 | Junko's Talk To Us Virtual
The Future of Vehicle Safety Regulation
May 2025 | MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) Consortium 10th Anniversary Symposium Cambridge, MA
A Look to the Future
May 2025 | MIT Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) Consortium 10th Anniversary Symposium Cambridge, MA
Availability
- Keynote
- Moderator
- Panelist
Awards
A. R. Lauer Safety Award
Issued by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Oct 2025
Inaugural Autos2050 Driving Innovation Award for Impact
Issued by Auto Alliance and the Alliance for Transportation Innovation
Jan 2018
Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award
Issued by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Oct 2019
Bartimaeus Award
Issued by Henry Ford Health
Nov 2024
