The Data Scientists
Dr. Norma Faris Hubele
Founder & CEO
A statistician and educator for more than thirty years, Dr. Norma Faris Hubele has spent her life serving the public as a professor, consumer advocate, and automotive safety expert.
Norma began her college studies in mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After receiving her Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, she joined the engineering faculty at Arizona State University as only the third woman in a faculty of over 100 professors. Her career has been marked by many firsts. Most notably, Norma was the first to assume the position of Director of Strategic Initiatives for the entire school of engineering, the first to reach the rank of full professor while balancing work and family in a part-time capacity, and also the first pregnant faculty member.
In addition to teaching university students, Norma has served as an expert witness in over 120 consumer-related cases. The vast majority of her expert witness work over the past 30 years has been in the area of automotive safety, plus she has testified in other areas such as mortgage fraud and sports equipment design.
Using her in-depth knowledge of statistical methods and automotive crash data, Norma has helped educate the courts about when statistics can be used to inform decisions and when they cannot. She has been involved in debates about a wide cross-section of automotive safety issues, including gas tank placement, rollover risk, child protection in rear seating, and seatback failure.
Norma is now sharing her extensive experience directly with consumers. By founding The Auto Professor and creating the easy-to-use ranking system called Auto Grades, Norma has created the only go-to data source for getting accurate information on how well cars have protected drivers in real-life crashes.
Why Trust Us?
Dr. Kathryn Kennedy
Chief Technical Officer
A statistician, engineer, and data scientist, Kathryn has spent her career turning data into information and knowledge in high-stakes contexts.
Kathryn earned her Ph.D. at Arizona State University. She then worked as a quality engineer at an aerospace company, where quality makes the difference between a mission’s success and failure – to the tune of millions of dollars. She left aerospace to help start a company specializing in statistics and data management for clinical trials, another area where quality can be a life-or-death issue. Expanding her experience but continuing in a high-pressure environment, she next went to Amazon.com to forecast device sales and analyze consumer engagement.
Kathryn joined The Auto Professor team to help bring Auto Grades to consumers, uncovering the story of quality and protection contained in the wealth of crash data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Even when drivers do everything right on the road, there’s still an element of risk … they cannot control the actions of others. Kathryn specializes in evaluating the data to tell drivers what really happens on the road, empowering people with the tools they need to select better cars to protect themselves and their families.
