ANN ARBOR – Robert Hampshire, associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, has been appointed to work in the U.S. Transportation Department under the Biden administration, it was announced Thursday. He was appointed principal deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at the Transportation Department. The office, which receives an annual investment of $1 billion for transportation research and development, coordinates technology and research programs. He will oversee the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Transportation Safety Institute in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hampshire was a research associate professor at U-M’s Michigan Institute for Data Science and Transportation Research Institute’s Human Factors group.