Francesca Favaro

head of safety best practices

Dr. Francesca Favaro leads the Safety Best Practices team at Waymo, where she coordinates external engagement with standards developing organizations and curates the continuous development of Waymo’s Safety Case. Prior to joining Waymo in 2020, she was an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering at San Jose State University and a Research Associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute, where she held the position of Director for the Risk and Safety Assessment for Autonomous System Lab. Dr. Favaro holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech, and a Space Engineering M.S. from Politecnico di Milano. She is a soloed pilot, and a FAA-certified advanced ground instructor.

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Presentation

Waymo Driver safety and deployment readiness - Methodologies and criteria for absence of unreasonable risk

Waymo has years of experience operating a fully autonomous fleet across multiple cities in the United States. The promises of safety, accessibility, and sustainability of Automated Driving Systems go hand in hand with both the technological feasibility and public acceptance. In this talk, Dr. Favaro will present an overview of the criteria that ground deployment decisions for the Waymo Driver. The presentation will also feature a discussion on the careful decision-making governance framework in place at Waymo to responsibly evaluate autonomous driving configurations. An example criterion will anchor a brief deeper dive to showcase the application of the presented concepts.