Sharon Todd chats to Dr Ken Catchpole one of the HFESA's keynote speakers for the annual conference in Tasmania Australia in December. So who is he, what does he do and what can we expect? Dr Ken Catchpole is a cognitive scientist and human factors practitioner who seeks to understand and improve human performance in complex systems. After leading a nationwide project developing human abilities in weapon detection at UK airports, he began research in healthcare in 2003 at Great Ormond S...

Sidney Irwin is an early career researcher and lecturer at the School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences at Central Queensland University. She received her doctorate from the same university. Her focus is on the normative rules of trash talk in esports and is expanding her expertise towards esport psychology, human factors and user experiences. Currently, Sidney is focused on investigating the impact of jet lag on professional player performance. She has a qualitative research back...

Gemma Read from the Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems (UniSC) chats to Samantha Jackson about Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) safety. Samantha Jackson is a registered psychologist, human factors professional, and PhD candidate. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), a Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology)(Honours), and a Postgraduate Certificate in Safety and Accident Investigation. She served in the Australian Army for 24 years, holding bot...

Mary Patterson MD, MEd is a pediatric emergency medicine physician and the Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and the Lou Oberndorf Professor of Healthcare Technology at the University of Florida where she has directed the Center for Experiential Learning and Simulation since 2018. She is past- president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and has served on the BOD for the Society of Simulation in Healthcare and the International Pediatric Simulation Society. In addition, s...

Craig Fletcher and Sharon Todd explore the world of designing HFE into projects including some recent work on the use of VR to reduce suicide on the rail network. Craig has 25 years experience in the area of ergonomics and human factors, both in Australia and the UK. He is experienced in conducting human factors assessments for a broad range of industry and application. Craig is focussed on delivering practical solutions to human factors problems and is experienced in managing a wide range of...

Karen Lange-Morales, David Caple and Andrew S. Imada discusses the work of the IEA and their new publication "Giving your business the Humans Factors Edge - Making it Happen" to improve productivity, quality of products and the wellbeing of employees. The International Ergonomics Association (IEA) is a non-profit international federation of ergonomics and human factors societies from around the world. This document was developed as part of the Science, Technology and Practice Stan...

Sharon Todd is chatting to Donna Duffy who is a Human Factors Engineering Specialist with over 25 years of experience in human factors and psychology. As a founding Co-Director of Human Engineered, Donna brings deep expertise to industries including Defence and aviation where she likes to drive organisational change and system design excellence. Previously Donna was an Associate Technical Fellow and Principal Human Factors Specialist at Boeing Defence Australia. Her contributions to pro...

Sharon Todd chats to Professor Robyn Clay-Williams about Emergency Department design for underserved cohorts. Robyn leads a research program at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, in the field of human factors in healthcare. Over a career spanning nearly 45 years in aviation and healthcare, Robyn has worked extensively to develop and evaluate systems to make them fit for purpose and easier to use. Robyn provides expert advice to policymakers,...

Sharon Todd is chatting to Sam Gerges about his ergonomics programs to minimise injuries and reduce injury costs in Vehicle Manufacturing. Sam is a qualified physiotherapist, egonomics and occupational health and safety specialist with over 15 years experience working in Australia, Japan and America. Experienced across many industries including manufacturing, oil and gas, forestry, retail and logistics, Sam possesses expert, practical knowledge of ergonomics and human factors, part, process a...

Heather Kahle talks with Sharon Todd about her work, her manual handling projects and the tools that she uses. As a Human Factors consultant and previous president of the Association of Canadian Ergonomists, Heather helps companies apply human organizational performance/human factors and ergonomics principles and methods. In 30 years with WorkSafeBC, she applies experience with investigations, MSI prevention, and error mitigation across many diverse industries. Heather's journey i...

Sharon Todd chats to Dr Puji Silva a mechanical and medical engineer about his work and research into litigation injury data. Puji primarily works in ergonomic risk assessments and litigation matters related to permanent injury in both workplace and public liability cases, applying his expertise in biomechanics, human factors, and safety design principles to improve workplace outcomes and legal evaluations. Dr. Pujitha Silva is a mechanical and medical engineer with extensive experience in hu...

Dr Vanessa Huron discusses the use of drones in various environments and the human factors aspects of drone use. Dr Vanessa Huron holds a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) in Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Diploma in Innovation Management and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of New South Wales. Vanessa's research focuses on human factors and safety, accessibility management, and educational design and delivery applied across several domains, including Psychosocial...

Sharon Todd chats to Professor Sidney Dekker about his experience in organisational psychology and his thoughts on incidents, blame and forgiveness. Sidney takes us on a roller-coaster ride; as he discusses error as a consequence of other factors, encourages us to set others up for success and challenges organisations to choreograph significant change into their responses to failure. Sidney Dekker (PhD Ohio State University, USA, 1996) is Professor in the School of Humanities, Lan...

The HFESA president Kath Jones is chatting to Ari Antonovsky about his work on Human factors and 'Human Dependability.' Dr Antonovsky was originally trained as a Materials Engineer. Through his role as a Reliability Engineer in the resource industry in Australia, Indonesia and NZ, he became involved in working directly with maintenence and operations crews. His interest in human factors and the organiastional aspects of maintenance lead to PhD research at Curtin University, sponso...

Kath Jones our HFESA President, is discussing Organisational Performance, Cognitive Demands, and Mental Health Maturity Assessment Tools with Stephanie Black. Stephanie Black is an experienced programs manager with a diverse cross-disciplinary background. Stephanie is passionate about enhancing organisational performance and human wellbeing amidst the complexities of modern technology and operational demands.She has successfully managed geophysics, IT, and QHSE projects, including ...

Paul Lambertson and Sharon Todd chat about his experience in Flight Deck design and his use of Systems Theoretical Process Analysis (STPA) (Levenson & Thomas 2018).Paul Lambertson has been in the aerospace industry for over twenty years and in that time he has had a focus on human to machine interface for the design and operations of flight decks. He has had lead projects on all of Boeings current commercial aircraft and has been fortunate to lead many teams. These team include huma...

Chris Polaczuk and Steve Kolose chat to Sharon Todd about their participative tradie programme.Musculoskeletal injuries have resulted in significant lost productivity in the New Zealand Construction industry and are especially prevalent in the specialist trades. Despite recent advances in health, safety and technology meaningful interventions to reduce these injuries in construction remain elusive. To compound the issue pain and injury has been accepted as part of the trade and an inevitabili...

Professor Catherine Burns talks to SharonTodd (CPE) about her experiences with system design and AI systems in health.Catherine M. Burns is Professor in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada and Associate Vice President, Health Initiatives at the Office of Research at the University of Waterloo.In her past administrative roles she has been engaged with institutional and tri agency funding programs, research partnerships, Waterloo’s equity in research action plan, an...

Sharon Todd is chatting to Adjunct Professor Kate Conroy one of the HFESA's Keynote speakers at our annual conference in Brisbane this year.Dr Kate Conroy is a specialist in building trustworthy, ethical, and assured robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial Intelligence (RAS-AI) systems in both military and civilian domains. Dr Conroy works in AI Safety and Assurance Queensland Government and is Responsible AI Lead Royal Australian Air Force. With a PhD in philosophy from Rutgers Un...

Kath Jones is chatting to Dr John Chan about Burnout. Dr. John Chan is the managing director at Infinite Potential, an independent not-for-profit think tank that develops high-quality, rigorous research, evaluation, and practical solutions to address some of the most pressing workplace problems. An Industrial/Organisational psychologist with 20+ years of global experience designing people strategies to transform how we work and our relationship with work. As a thought leader in the ...