Lisa M. Bendixen
Lisa M. Bendixen is an expert in hazardous materials risk and safety and has addressed risk management, risk assessment, security, and resilience challenges across numerous industries, for fixed facilities as well as transportation systems. She is a vice president at ICF, consulting on critical infrastructure security and resilience, mission assurance, and other risk management issues with the Departments of Defense (DOD), Energy (DOE), and Homeland Security (DHS). She served on the Transportation Security Panel for the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) report Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism and was on the NRC committee that produced the report Terrorism and the Chemical Infrastructure: Protecting People and Reducing Vulnerabilities as well as several other national committees focusing on transportation risks, including spent fuel. She was the project manager and primary author of the Guidelines for Chemical Transportation Risk Analysis, published by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Center for Chemical Process Safety, and served on the center’s technical steering committee. Her work with DHS has included long-term support on critical infrastructure security and resilience, including several versions of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, development and implementation of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, and strategic and policy support to the Office of Infrastructure Protection. She has supported DOE on work related to grid security, from natural hazards and adversarial threats. She is also actively supporting DOD on critical energy and communications infrastructure. She has played leading roles in several safety and risk associations. Ms. Bendixen holds a B.S. in applied mathematics and an M.S. in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jorge A. Carrasco
Jorge A. Carrasco is Director of Operations of Ambipar Response USA and has more than 40 years of experience in emergency management. He has been providing hazmat response services and specialized training worldwide in the areas of industrial emergencies, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and emergency management to clients at the chemical producers, railways, mining companies, ports, governments, and emergency responders in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Spain, Northern Africa, and the United States. He began his career as a Vessel Engineer in the Chilean Merchant Marine before moving into the railroad industry as Safety Operations Manager at the Chili and Bolivia Railway Company, where he specialized in hazardous materials and tank car safety. Afterward, he became Manager of International Hazmat Operations at the Security and Emergency Response Training Center, which is based at the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. in Pueblo, Colorado. Since 2012, he is a principal on the technical committee for the Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents (NFPA 472), as well as serving on three other National Fire Protection Association technical committees concerned with standards for hazardous materials and WMD response. He earned a diploma in solid-state chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Anay Luketa
Anay Luketa is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff of the Fire Science and Technology Department at Sandia National Laboratories. She is currently conducting an evaluation of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to predict dispersion and fire hazards for LNG facilities. This evaluation also includes assistance with reviews by PHMSA of hazard modeling software to comply with the 49 CFR 193. She has provided independent review and analysis of explosion hazards from a natural gas pipeline for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in response to safety concerns identified in the report by NRC Inspector General and evaluated LNG models for fire and dispersion. Her studies of LNG include a safety analysis of large LNG carriers and fire and dispersion analyses of LNG over water. She has also published on models for LNG dispersion about large-scale LNG spills. She earned a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in psychology from Seattle University, an M.S. and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington.
Gregory G. Noll
Gregory G. Noll is Senior Planning Specialist for the South Central Task Force, a nine-county, all-hazards emergency preparedness organization in southcentral Pennsylvania. He is also the Principal at GGN Technical Resources LLC, a consulting firm specializing in emergency planning, response, and incident management issues. He is the past chair and current member of both the NFPA Technical Committee on Hazardous Materials Response and the InterAgency Board - Training and Exercises SubGroup. He is the recipient of a number of national-level awards, including the 2011 John M. Eversole Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), which is the highest award given by the IAFC Hazardous Materials Committee. In 2019, he was inducted into the National Fire Heritage Center - Hall of Legends, Leaders and Legacies for his lifetime contributions to the fire service. A Certified Safety Professional and a Certified Emergency Manager, he has been involved in a number of national emergency response initiatives involving hazardous materials and energy products. He earned a B.A. in business administration and management from Kutztown State College and an M.A. in public administration from Iowa State University.
Dimitris Rizos
Dimitris Rizos is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of South Carolina. His areas of research are in structural mechanics with an emphasis on railway and highway infrastructure, structural dynamics and soil-structure interaction. His current research activities focus on railway structures with emphasis on railway infrastructure monitoring and assessment; railway dynamics; analysis and design of freight, passenger, and high-speed railway structures (bridges, tunnels, and track); and high-performance materials for civilian and military applications. He received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Patras, Greece, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of South Carolina.
William C. Shust
William (Bill) C. Shust is an engineering consultant, holding the positon of Mechanical Engineer and Owner of Objective Engineers, Inc., where he performs mechanical testing and analysis for clients in the railroad industry. He has more than 30 years of experience in mechanical and structural engineering and dynamics and has taught courses on vehicle crash testing and mechanical testing and analysis. He has published and presented more than three dozen technical papers in refereed journals and at conferences and authored technical reports for the Association of American Railroads and others. He is active in professional societies such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Automotive Engineers, Society for Experimental Mechanics, and American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association. He is a registered professional engineer in Colorado and Illinois and earned bachelor’ and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University.
Patrick J. Student
Patrick J. Student has more than 40 years of experience with industry regulations governing hazardous materials transportation by rail. Mr. Student currently consults for the Association of American Railroads (AAR) as an editor for the AAR Manual of Standards and Recommended Practices for Interoperable Fuel Tenders for Locomotives, M-1004 Specifications for Fuel Tenders. In 2016, he retired as Director of Hazardous Material and Hazardous Materials Management, Union Pacific Railroad, where he was responsible for interpreting hazardous materials regulations, railroad operating rules for train makeup and powering, and developing systems for compliance with the rules and regulations. While at Union Pacific, he served on the AAR Hazardous Materials Committee, Tank Car Committee, and Electronic Data Interchange Hazardous Materials Technical Advisory Group. He also served on the Next Generation Rail Tank Car Project and Advanced Tank Car Collaborative Research Project. Mr. Student holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Missouri at Rolla.
