Nicolaas Jackie van der Westhuizen is a globally recognized rail technology executive and safety innovator with more than two decades of experience advancing railway safety, inspection technologies, and infrastructure reliability across North America, South America, Africa, and Australasia. He serves as Vice President of the Surface Transportation Group at ENSCO, Inc., where he leads ENSCO Rail, KLD Labs, ENSCO Rail Australia, ENSCO Technologies Brazil, and ENSCO’s Applied Technology & Engineering Division. In this capacity, he oversees operations at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Transportation Technology Center (TTC), the world’s largest facility dedicated to rail safety research, full-scale testing, and technology development.
Van der Westhuizen provides strategic leadership for multidisciplinary teams delivering innovations in autonomous track inspection, advanced sensing systems, vehicle/track interaction research, predictive analytics, and managed inspection services that support safer, more efficient, and data-driven railway operations. His work contributes directly to industry and regulatory efforts to reduce derailments, improve asset condition assessment, and accelerate the deployment of next-generation safety technologies.
With a strong background in academia, he previously served as Chair in Railway Engineering at the University of Pretoria, where he developed undergraduate and graduate programs, led national research initiatives, supervised postgraduate students, and delivered professional development programs for the rail industry. This experience informs his ongoing commitment to strengthening collaboration between academia, government agencies, and industry partners to advance railway safety research and workforce development.
Earlier in his career, van der Westhuizen co-founded e-Logics (Pty) Ltd, later contributing to the company’s growth into a multinational enterprise prior to its acquisition. He has authored numerous technical papers and presentations across TRB, IHHA, AREMA, and SAICE, and has served on Transportation Research Board committees and engineering advisory groups.
Van der Westhuizen holds an M.Eng. in Transportation Engineering (Cum Laude), a B.Eng. (Hons) in Management of Technology, and a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering from the University of Pretoria.
Vice President of the Surface Transportation Group, ENSCO, Inc.
