Daniel LeMaster, Ph.D.
Daniel LeMaster, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist, HASS COE
daniel.lemaster@dot.gov
Dr. Daniel A. LeMaster is a Senior Scientist at the USDOT Highly Automated Systems Safety Center of Excellence (HASS COE). He specializes in sensors and perception, focusing on cross-modal automation safety challenges and horizon scanning for future opportunities in highly automated transportation systems.
Innovation with Generative AI
Dr. LeMaster has developed generative AI toolkits used in the analysis of automated driving disengagement data, streamlining acquisition processes, optimizing grant reviews, and categorizing abstracts submitted to the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting. Collaborating with the Chief AI Officer and partners at the Volpe Center, Dr. LeMaster has played a role in shaping the USDOT’s AI governance policy and scaling cloud-based AI tools to enhance research, business productivity, and knowledge dissemination across the Department.
Preparing for a Quantum Future
Dr. LeMaster is actively working with ARPA-I to prepare USDOT for a quantum-enhanced future in transportation. Their initiatives include comprehensive recommendations to integrate quantum sensing and computing into the nation’s transportation systems, covering policy, planning, regulation and standards, economic development, enforcement, inspections, and research. His vision is for the Department to be ready with experimentally verified options to accelerate transportation safety and efficiency using quantum information science when this tipping point occurs.
Current and Emerging Sensor Technologies
Sensors play a central role in automated transportation, delivering the critical data and situational awareness essential for safe, efficient, and intelligent vehicle operation. Since joining USDOT, Dr. LeMaster has collaborated extensively with government, industry, and academic partners on various testing activities. Examples include the spectral characterization of robotic surrogate vehicles, lidar characterization for object detection and eye safety, and GPS antenna experimentation on a crane ship in the Ready Reserve Force. He continually seeks opportunities to contribute to and learn from sensor experimentation across transportation modes, striving to enhance USDOT’s ability to review, validate, and assess automated systems.
Building Capacity Across USDOT Operating Administrations
A core theme of Dr. LeMaster's work is translating sensors and perception knowledge to partners across the USDOT Office of the Secretary and the Operating Administrations. He organizes workshops, webinars, demonstrations, hands-on training, and numerous small group engagements covering AI, quantum technology, and various sensing and perception topics.
Background
Before joining HASS COE, Dr. LeMaster was the Technical Advisor for the Plans and Advanced Programs Division at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in the Sensors Directorate. His research planning methods became the archetype for executing the directorate’s $900 million annual budget. Some other career highlights include innovations in reconnaissance imaging systems, deployment of new optical tools for treaty inspections, and commercialization of his polarimetric imaging patent.
Dr. LeMaster's contributions to science and technology have earned him multiple awards from the Air Force, NATO, and the international society for optics and photonics (SPIE). He is a Fellow of SPIE and the Military Sensing Symposia. Dr. LeMaster received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Applied Physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a B.S.E. in Engineering Physics from Wright State University. Additionally, he is a graduate of the Air War College distance learning program. Prior to becoming an engineer, he served in the U.S. Army as a Cavalry Scout.
