Autonomous Trucks: The Future is Here (Panel Discussion)

Shannon McClellan Cohen provides legislative counsel services to the firm’s clients. Ms. Cohen monitors forthcoming and active legislation and regulation pertaining to issues affecting motor carriers, with an emphasis on legislation touching on the independent contractor status of owner-operators using her extensive background with and familiarity of owner-operator programs and issues attendant to the design of a successful owner-operator model. She regularly assists in drafting and revising legislation and assessing and communicating the impact of such legislation on the trucking industry. Ms. Cohen has also been a featured speaker on these topics to industry stakeholders and associations.

As the Senior Director of Operations at Plus, Amisha Vadalia helped build and now oversees industry-leading operations, safety processes, trainings, and pilot programs that pave the way for the safe commercial rollout of Plus’s self-driving truck technology. The operations team, under Amisha’s leadership, coordinates testing and data collection, manages the supply chain, and supports national customer deployments of Plus’s first commercial product – a driver-in solution called PlusDrive.

Amisha previously worked in the renewable energy sector, leading operations at a solar monitoring and data analytics company. Amisha graduated from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she received a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Management.

Tammy Hamilton is VP Operations at Gatik, the market leader in autonomous middle mile logistics. The company delivers goods safely and efficiently using its fleet of light and medium-duty trucks, focusing on short-haul, B2B logistics for Fortune 500 retailers such as Walmart, Georgia-Pacific, and Loblaw.  

Tammy is a visionary leader bringing over 20 years of experience in establishing operational optimization across diverse industries within North America. Prior to joining Gatik, Tammy spent over a decade as Senior Vice President of Driving Force Inc. and before that held a variety of senior leadership positions with Air Canada and Air North, as well as founding Direct Approach Consulting Inc. 

In her role, Xinfeng refines Waymo’s product vision and strategy for trucking; develops the roadmap and determines product requirements, leverages user research, product insight and technical knowledge; works with hardware, software, and systems engineering departments to execute and turn new technologies into products; and works cross-functionally with Waymo teams to bring market products that solve customer needs and transform freight transportation. 

Prior to Waymo, Xinfeng worked at Uber, where she was first a Product Manager for Global Growth and then a Carrier Experience Product Lead for Uber Freight. Previously, Xinfeng worked at eBay.

Xinfeng holds an M.S. in Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Technology from Southeast University in China. 

Akila Panneerselvam is an engineering manager of Perception in Torc Robotics, leading vision, and machine learning teams. Torc is highly dedicated in bringing autonomous trucks to the road in a safe and technically sound manner.

Akila has been in the automotive industry for 15 years, in leadership and technical roles for National Instruments, Aptiv, Cummins, and Continental. She was crucial in developing the simulation team and the needs of software validation in closed loop manner for the ADAS features in Aptiv. She was head of engineering at NI, overseeing the services organization and the Aerospace/Defense R&D needs.

Akila holds a Postgraduate from University of Texas, Austin in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and an MS in Engineering from Purdue University.