BRYAN SALESKY

Chosen because: The software engineer has been director of hardware development for Google's autonomous vehicle efforts for the past three years, splitting his time between Pittsburgh and Mountain View, Calif. Before Google, Bryan Salesky was at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. Indeed, he was the software lead for the university's legendary victorious 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Urban Challenge team. At Google, he has worked with the California Department of Motor Vehicles on formulating flexible regulations for the development of autonomous vehicles.