Brian Lathrop is the Senior Principal Scientist for the Technology and Trend Scouting team at Volkswagen. In 2003 Brian received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2004 Brian joined VW and was responsible for human factors and usability testing activities for infotainment and driver assistance systems. In 2008 Brian became the senior manager of the HMI team at the ERL, responsible for defining the vision, roadmap, and overall strategy. He has led many projects focused on reinventing the vehicle cockpit of tomorrow, realizing advanced infotainment controls, futuristic displays, gaze and gesture-dependent interfaces, and HMI concepts for self-driving cars. In 2016 Brian joined the Technology and Trend Scouting, focused on transforming customer insights into user friendly products.