Mary T. Byrd, MA
Founder

Mary worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from 2010 to 2025. During her time at the agency, she worked in the Office of Behavioral Safety Research and in the Office of Impaired Driving and Occupant Protection. Over her years at NHTSA, Mary planned, procured, and managed over forty projects and worked to publish approximately fifty technical reports and Traffic Techs. Her project management experience includes complex national surveys, meta-analyses, program evaluations, and program development work. Mary is a national Subject Matter Expert in Occupant Protection, focusing most of her career on seat belt programs. She worked on a variety of seat belt issues including rural, rear seat, occasional, and nighttime. She facilitated State Occupant Protection Assessments and reviewed State applications for 405(b) funding. Mary managed the Occupant Protection Division budget, facilitated quarterly seat belt meetings with the NHTSA Regions, founded the cross-agency Seat Belt Tabletop, and engaged in strategic planning for the agency. She has been associated with the Transporation Research Board since 2010 including acting as secretary of the Occupant Protection Committee. She served on the Lifesavers planning committee since 2019 where she worked to make seat belts a priority issue. Mary is a certified Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR II) and completed three leadership programs including the American University Aspiring Leaders Program. Prior to working at NHTSA, she had an apprenticeship with National Public Radio Labs where she worked on Human Factors research to design a radio receiver for users without vision, develop captioned radio for deaf and hard of hearing users to maximize learning, and tested the effect of degraded radio on memory. Mary studied Experimental Psychology at Towson University including being nominated for thesis of the year for her study on the effect of automatic processing on the detection of sudden visual intrusions. She started at Anne Arundel Community College where she was a member of the Psi Beta Honor Society and the All-Maryland Academic Team. Mary lives in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland with her husband, three children, and dog.