Sandy Straus

Achievements and Accolades

Automated Tests, Methods, and Systems

Sandy Straus has designed the first automated transportation license test system. She has developed and invented one of the largest lines of computerized products, packages, and systems that relate to all areas of transportation and, in particular, the automated screening of vision, cognition, knowledge, sign recognition, and/ or driving skills of individuals. These exceptional patents and patents-pending designs have been applied to transportation agencies, medical facilities, educational institutes, and military installations and may save millions of dollars and numerous lives in the sectors of aviation, agriculture, rail, maritime, motorcycles, hazardous materials, commercial driver's licenses, and Homeland Security. Her authoritative text, New, Improved, Comprehensive and Automated Driver's License Test and Vision Screening System, and research note have been widely acclaimed and recognized by driver’s license bureaus in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. These publications have also been incorporated into neuropsychology courses at the University of Hawaii. One recent presentation, A Call for New Transportation License Test Reforms, has been featured on the United States Department of Transportation website.

Sandy Straus has also co-invented the Automatic Clock Drawing Test ™, the first online, rapid, computerized, and validated Clock Drawing Test, in both standard and international time (military time) versions. These cognition tools have been designed to rapidly and objectively screen for cognitive impairment, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, brain injuries, psychiatric conditions, and patient pathology, among other applications. In addition to published articles in prestigious journals, the patents-pending Automatic Clock Drawing Test has been presented in a session on dementia at the 9th European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe, AAATE, in San Sebastian, Spain.  Sandy Straus has also invented the Online Trail Making Tests ™, the first rapid, sensitive, objective, and scientifically proven automated online version of the traditional Trail Making Tests that were originally developed for the US Army. A recent presentation on these cutting edge online cognitive tests has been a must-read guide for clinicians and decision-makers.  Straus has also co-designed several patents-pending static and dynamic visual acuity screening tests to automate the process of vision testing online unlike any before. Her inventions have been the force behind her technology company's recognition as SFBJ Technology Award Finalist. Her numerous new automated testing systems and methods have been designed to improve safety and to save lives, especially within the transportation infrastructure, and to advance medicine in densely populated and remote clinical settings. 

Automation of Traffic Safety Devices and Systems

Sandy Straus also has developed new patents-pending truck lanes, mathematical models, and software, the Straus Pavement Damage Estimation ™, or ESRA SPDE, to estimate pavement damage due to overweight trucks. The Straus Pavement Damage Estimations have been successfully tested and adopted in several Departments of Transportation across the USA. Straus has also acted as primary author of a recent Arizona Department of Transportation report and research note and Transportation Research Board paper on overweight vehicles that has resulted in improvements to international and intrastate border security. It has been presented at and disseminated by the National Academy of Science. These publications are available through the United States Department of Transportation, United States Department of Commerce National Technical Information Service, and ESRA. Other reports are currently pending publication.

According to the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration Bridge Structure Comparative Analysis, Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Limits Study , November 2013, the report, Estimating the Cost of Overweight Vehicle Travel on Arizona Highways, authored by Sandy H. Straus, is identified and cited as one of the key publications that "....may inform as to new approaches or refinements to existing approaches to: 1) the quantifying of structural demands on bridges due to ‘heavy’ truck loads; and/or 2) the derivation of resulting bridge capital costs".

Sandy Straus' report, Estimating the Cost of Overweight Vehicle Travel on Arizona Highways, is also identified, cited, and summarized as a key document in the publication, Enforcement and Compliance Comparative Analysis, Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Limits Study, MAP-21 Section 32801, 8 November 2013 by United States Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.

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In addition to being an internationally recognized expert and inventor in automated driver’s license test design and vision screening test development, Sandy Straus is also a distinguished author of reports on risk analysis, perception, and simulation associated with visual acuity, older driver assessment, dementia driver analysis, teen driver aptitude, road and highway safety, driver license testing, driver’s license policy, human factors, truck safety, overweight vehicles, and transportation engineering. She has had a personal lifelong commitment to traffic safety and collision prevention. Simulation development and analyses have completely spanned Sandy Straus’ entire academic and professional careers. Sandy Straus has been recognized for her successful online test inventions that provide automatic fitness to drive determinations, fitness-for-duty (military) measurements, and brain fitness evaluations. Her online products and inventions have set the gold standard to go green without the need for paper, software, e-waste, or new computer systems.

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As a traffic engineering and safety expert, Sandy Straus has also developed several fully automated and autonomous patents-pending road traffic sign tests based on her computational analyses of millions of road collisions, the driving behaviors of millions of drivers, as well as her experiences advising governments where to actually install traffic control devices.

Hazardous Waste Materials and Management

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Sandy Straus has demonstrated outstanding proficiency in hazardous waste materials and hazardous waste management.  Her knowledge of risk analysis and nuclear waste disposal has been shown through significant authorship, experience, refereeing, computation, lectureship, certification, and education. She has authored, along with Dr. Ian Farmer, an international mining engineering authority on the engineering behavior of rocks, six books, on the subjects of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), Yucca Mountain, the United States Department of Energy waste generator-host sites, mine safety, and international approaches to nuclear waste disposal.

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Sandy Straus has proven her extensive expertise in the areas of geology, nuclear engineering, seismology, and volcanology and how these relate to probabilistic risk assessment of geologic nuclear waste repositories, through refereeing posts for a prestigious international journal. She has also refereed papers on flood risks, mitigation, and phenomena.  Sandy Straus has also shown expertise in risk perception and risk analysis of the impacts of transuranic nuclear waste transportation through the American Indian tribal lands of New Mexico. In a recent Transportation Research Board presentation and paper, Sandy Straus has demonstrated that traffic risks, in addition to radiological risks, require further study along current and future waste transportation routes. She has worked with every pueblo and reservation in New Mexico to accomplish this aptitude. She has developed and implemented national and international risk communication and assessment programs. Sandy Straus also has strong computing and coding skills in UNIX, Mac, and PC platforms.  She has successfully generated two- and three-dimensional magnetic field maps of the lunar crust using Lunar Prospector data through a NASA-funded grant.

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Sandy Straus also has proficiency in environmental impact assessments, Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), land development, regulatory permitting, contamination, failure analyses, exposure assessment, probabilistic exposure assessments, hazards and risks evaluation, transportation route analyses, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance, mining, petroleum and gas probabilistic assessments, hydrogeologic characterization, safety engineering, residential and commercial construction, and overweight vehicle impacts on pavement damage.

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Sandy Straus is also educated in the storage, transportation, safety, and legal aspects of explosives and explosive devices. She holds a certificate of Hazardous Materials Incident Response: Awareness through the University of Missouri- Columbia. She is also certified in Radiological Emergency Management, Radiological Emergency Response, Building for the Earthquakes: Complying with Executive Order 12699, Engineering Principles and Practices for Retrofitting Flood-Prone Residential Structures, IS-100 Incident Command System, and IS-700 National Incident Management System (NIMS) through the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Sandy Straus also holds a certificate of Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety issued through the United States Department of Transportation.