Featured Speakers

James D. Green | Keynote Speaker

Senior Researcher

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Mr. Green is currently employed as a Senior Researcher for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Mr. Green has also held engineering positions with the Naval Air Systems Command Headquarters in Washington D.C., the Boeing Company in Seattle, and the Bechtel Power Corporation in Maryland.

For the past 20 years Mr. Green has been involved in research to improve ambulance crash safety for those in the patient compartment. Mr. Green has published research on this subject through the International Journal of Crashworthiness, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and the American Society of Safety Engineers. He has also co-authored and published nine SAE Recommended Practices and one SAE Informational Report, as well as one Test Method with the National Truck Equipment Association (NTEA). The NTEA Test Method and all 10 SAE documents are now referenced in three different bumper-to-bumper ambulance standards promulgated by the National Fire Protection Association, the Commission for the Accreditation of Ambulance Services, and the General Services Administration, respectively. His work, completed collaboratively with the ambulance industry, has led to significant improvements in the patient cot, worker seating, equipment mounts, storage compartments, and the patient compartment’s structural integrity when in a crash.

Past awards include: 2018 Alice Hamilton Award For Excellence In Occupational Safety and Health, Education & Guidance Category (NIOSH Award); 2017 Person of the Year Award presented by Automotive Testing Technology International; 2017 EMS Partnership of the Year Award presented by the American Ambulance Assoc.; 2017 Digital Health Merit Award for Video Series presented by the Health Information Resource Ctr; 2016 SAE/InterRegs Standards and Regulations Award; 2009, 2011, and 2016 Bullard-Sherwood Award for Research2Practice – Intervention Category; (NIOSH Award) 2015 James M. Crawford Technical Standards Board Outstanding Achievement Award presented by SAE; 2014 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals Citizen Services Medal (Finalist); 2011 Charles C. Shepard Science Award Finalist for Outstanding Scientific Paper (CDC Award); 2011 Alice Hamilton Award, Honorable Mention, Engineering and Physical Sciences Category (NIOSH Award).

Mr. Green received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University in 1984 and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Maryland in 1995.

Dr. Avery Nathens | Keynote Speaker

Chief of Surgery and Trauma Medical Director

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Dr. Avery Nathens is currently the Chief of Surgery and the Trauma Medical Director at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Canada’s largest Level 1 trauma centre, and Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is a general surgeon with a focus on trauma care, performance improvement, and health system design. He is Medical Director of Trauma Quality Programs of the American College of Surgeons. His research interests include trauma system effectiveness and quality of trauma care. He holds the DeSouza Chair in Trauma Research and has published over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts including many landmark works on trauma care in Lancet, NEJM and JAMA. He has been the recipient of several million dollars of research funding from the NIH, Canadian Institutes of Health Research and many other agencies.

Educational background:

Queen’s University Medical School, Kingston, ON (1990)
Resident, General Surgery, University of Toronto (1998)
Surgical Scientist (PhD), Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto (1997)
Fellowship, Trauma and Surgical Critical Care, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA (2000)
Master in Public Health (MPH), University of Washington (2000)

Previous positions:

Attending Trauma Surgeon, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA (2000-2006)
Director, Surgical Critical Care, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA (2002-2006)
Director, Acute Care Section, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Centre (2002-2006)
Division Head, General Surgery and Director of Trauma, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto (2006-2012)

Terry R. Trammell, MD | Keynote Speaker

Orthopaedic Surgeon, Keynote Speaker, Motorsports Safety and Medical Consultant

Trammell Consulting LLC

Contracted by IndyCar Safety Engineering and Consultant to IndyCar Medical Staff

Trammell’s involvement in motorsports started by accident. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and IU Medical School in 1975 with an MD degree, then completed a Residency in Orthopaedic Surgery at IU in 1979 and a Fellowship in Spinal Surgery at the University of Toronto in 1980. Afterward, he joined Orthopaedics Indianapolis in July 1980 and started in the practice of Orthopaedic Surgery. As a rite of passage, the newest member of the group had the task of “taking call” on all the holidays for that first year in practice. Failing to read the fine print in his contract he was unaware that in Indianapolis “Race Day” is a holiday in addition to Memorial Day! His plans for “Race Day” went from at the track (as an avid photographer he had landed a position taking pictures from outside the turn 3 wall) to sitting in the hospital being “on call”. That was May 24, 1981 and Danny Ongias had a date with the third turn wall at THE SPEEDWAY. His injuries were severe, including an injury to his right leg for which the recommended treatment was amputation. Never one to color inside the lines, Trammell didn’t do as recommended. Ongias still has his leg and Trammell embarked on a lifelong affair with motorsports.

Trammell became the de facto Orthopaedic Consultant to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway tending to every driver injured there from then until 1996. He then served as an “assistant” to Dr. Kevin Scheid, his partner and Indy Racing League Orthopaedist, until the present. From 1984 to 2005, Trammell served as Director of Medical Services for CART. He and Dr. Stephen Olvey, CART’s Director of Medical Affairs, built a traveling medical team that provided on-site medical care to drivers and teams. They responded first to the track and stabilized injured drivers who eventually needed transport to a Level 1 Trauma Center. That response was at its zenith on September 13, 2001. That day Alex Zinardi lost both of his legs above the knee in a crash in Lausitz, Germany, surviving injuries thought to be unsurviveable, in a large part due to the rapid response of the medical/safety team that Drs. Olvey, Trammell and Lon Bromley built.

Trammell retired from his surgical practice at the end of 2012, but continued to see patients in consultation and second opinion at OrthoIndy through September 2017. He has been a medical, safety consultant to the Indy Racing League / IndyCar since 2005 and has served as the Drivers’ Medical Advocate since 2014. Trammell and Jeff Horton, Director of Engineering and Safety for IndyCar, have brought about many innovations that improve the safety of racing drivers.

Trammell was asked by the late Prof. Sid Watkins to join the FIA Expert Advisory Group for promotion of driver safety in 2000, and as a member of that group became a Founding Fellow of the FIA Institute for Motorsports Safety and Sustainability. This association afforded him the opportunity to be part of the ongoing development of driver protection systems on a worldwide scale and to share this information through the International Council of Motorsports Sciences, of which he is a founding member.

Trammell continues to be involved with IndyCar Safety Engineering as a contractor. His duties include accident investigation, analysis of crash dynamics and occupant kinematics that may or may not have led to injury. In the case of a driver injury, the specific cause of that injury is sought out and mitigation strategies are developed. When there is no driver injury the incident is studied to determine the manner in which the safety measures that have been incorporated into the race car mitigated the potential for injury. Using this data, the thresholds for injury are studied to use in the future development of safer IndyCars.

He is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award as well as other honors and awards.

Trammell and his wife Rhonda, an accomplished racing driver herself, have four grown children between them and spend their “leisure time” perfecting their golf game, which is a recently acquired passion.

Trammell’s goal for driver safety is “to know that an IndyCar driver is unlikely to be injured in the event of a crash, but I want to be the only one to know that!”