Christine Yager

Project Specialist II

Education

• M.Eng., Industrial and Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2008
• B.S., Industrial and Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2007

Short Biography

Christine Yager is a Project Specialist II in the Youth Transportation Safety (YTS) Program in TTI's Center for Transportation Safety. Ms. Yager helps oversee the data collection and analysis activities for the YTS Program's annual surveys, Zero Hero, You in the Driver Seat App, and overall Teens in the Driver Seat program evaluations. The annual surveys are collected from a sample of youth from participating program schools and allows us to track youth driving risk awareness and attitudes toward and participation in certain driving behaviors. The Zero Hero activities are pre- and post-observation activities that focus on seat belt use and distracted driving or walking. The You in the Driver Seat (YDS) App is designed to positively incentivize young drivers (ages 16-25) to avoid cell phone use while driving by instilling the idea that Responsibility has its Rewards. Young drivers earn gift card rewards after reaching certain safe driving milestones. Ms. Yager also helps with the research and development of educational outreach materials aimed to help young drivers increase safety amongst their peers. She serves as the Southeast Texas and Washington state Regional Representative to support schools that sign up to promote Teens in the Driver Seat within their school, and regularly participates in community outreach events to promote traffic safety. Teens in the Driver Seat is an innovative peer-to-peer teen driver safety program that is available for free to schools all across the United States. 

Prior to joining the YTS Program, Ms. Yager worked in the Human Factors Group at TTI, where she served as a Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Researcher on a wide variety of transportation safety projects. She gained extensive experience conducting surveys, managing and conducting participant research studies, and managing the sequence and timing of project activities to ensure deliverables were completed on schedule. Ms. Yager was assigned as the project manager for several projects, where her role was to manage the project budget, perform budgetary forecasting, coordinate personnel and equipment, and ensure all project deliverables were submitted according to the project contract. Participant research requires approval from the Institutional Review Board, and Ms. Yager gained extensive experience in the application process for a wide variety of projects, including approval to have participants text and drive on a closed course. Ms. Yager was also responsible for the recruiting, planning, scheduling, and managing of human factors driving studies conducted by the Human Factors Group.