Dr. Dean Bushey is an internationally recognized expert in autonomous, connected, electric, and shared transportation systems across air, rail, freight, trucking, and shared-system modalities. Serving as a senior consultant to several large municipalities on their smart and connected transportation systems has granted Dr. Bushey much leadership experience in the autonomous vehicle space. Currently, Dr. Bushey serves as Vice President of Hitachi’s Global Social Innovation Business (GSIB) in the Americas. He is a passionate leader with 30 years of business, academic, and military leadership experience in transportation and mobility, as a computer scientist, educator, and autonomous and connected systems expert.

Hitachi’s GSIB is a key growth business that combines a portfolio of transformational digital technology solutions with Hitachi’s industrial capabilities, thereby executing a mission of powering good while driving meaningful business transformation outcomes. Together with global partners and customers, GSIB co-creates solutions across multiple industries where Hitachi has strong OT and IT capabilities. GSIB is focused on establishing new markets and next-generation digital business models that create environmental, social, and economic value. The team is proud to offer solutions around logistics, smart-farming, smart-manufacturing, outcome-based insurance and regenerative medicine.

Prior to joining Hitachi in early 2021, Dr. Bushey was General Manager of a self-driving car startup whose mission is to super-charge communities with self-driving cars. From 2015 to 2019, he served concurrently as a professor of Computer Science and as director of the Advanced Mobility Institute at Florida Polytechnic University. Between 2013 and 2015, he was a senior management consultant to a nuclear engineering firm in Virginia for two years.

In 2013, Dr. Bushey retired from the U.S. Air Force as a full Colonel after 25 years of service. He gained extensive experience in unmanned systems, aviation, and leadership. Dr. Bushey was also instrumental in shaping the DoD’s worldwide, autonomous and connected advanced flight systems. He led international collations in autonomous systems and project management and is a Command Pilot with over 4500 hours of aircraft flight experience. In 1988, Dr. Bushey graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Clemson University.