Jane Lappin

Jane Lappin is a partner with Blue Door Strategy and Research, LLC, consulting internationally on automated vehicles at the intersection of regulation and business strategy.  She is the co-founder and organizer of the annual Automated Transportation Symposium, and immediate past chair of the Transportation Research Board Vehicle-Highway Automation Committee. She recently retired as Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Toyota Research Institute, addressing international regulatory issues related to automated vehicles.  Previously, Jane worked for the U.S. DOT Volpe Center managing large survey research projects assessing the impacts of advanced transportation technologies.   She served as U.S. DOT secretariat to the trilateral US-EU-JPN ITS Steering Committee, and as the U.S. co-chair of the US-EU-Japan Automation in Road Transportation Working Group. She was awarded a Gold Medal by the US Secretary of Transportation (2007) and the U.S. Government Special Award of Appreciation from NHTSA (2023) for outstanding contributions in the field of automated vehicle safety.  Before discovering her true calling in transportation, Jane worked for Abt Associates' business strategy group, for the Canadian International Development Agency evaluating women’s economic development programs in Bangladesh, and co-directing a public health survey in Haiti. She studied sociology as an undergraduate at Boston University and earned an MBA from the Simmons College Graduate School of Management, the world’s only all women’s business school.