April 2013 NUI Galway Hosts Two Ergonomics Events

NUI Galway’s Discipline of Mechanical Engineering will host two Ergonomics events, the Irish Ergonomics Society Annual Conference and a Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare and Patient Safety in parallel. The two events will take place on Thursday, 9 May in the Engineering Building, NUI Galway.

The theme of the Irish Ergonomics Society Annual Conference is ‘Ergonomics and Innovative Technologies’. Keynote speaker is Professor Neville Stanton from the Transportation Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. Professor Stanton’s presentation is entitled ‘Augmenting the Driver and Automating Driving – Investigations into the changing nature of the role of the driver with advanced vehicle systems’.

Over the past 20 years, Professor Stanton has been involved in a variety of system design projects. He initially conducted research into driver performance with Adaptive Cruise Control with Jaguar, which was first vehicle manufacturer to market  the system. In subsequent years he has worked on other systems, including: vision enhancement, parking aids, queue assist, all-weather warnings, head-up displays, blind-spot monitoring, collision avoidance systems and various levels of vehicle automation. In the course of the presentation, Professor Stanton will present findings from some of his studies and insights into conducting applied driving research projects.

The Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare and Patient Safety will run in parallel to the Irish Ergonomics Society Annual Conference. The invited keynote speaker will be Dr Tom Reader, Lecturer in Organisational and Social Psychology with the London School of Economics, who will deliver a presentation entitled ‘Leadership and team situation awareness during daily rounds in the Intensive Care Unit’.

Dr Reader researches, consults, and presents on the topic of organisational safety in the oil and gas, medical, and aviation industries. He is an expert on teamwork, decision-making, leadership, safety culture, risk perception, and non-technical skills assessment and training. Much of Dr Reader’s work has been conducted in acute medicine, and he is interested in why organisational accidents occur (e.g. medical errors), and how organisational psychology can be used to explain and prevent future mishaps. Prior to joining the London School of Economics in 2010, he worked in the offshore sector, and is a former risk advisor to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is also a Chartered member of the British Psychological Society.

Enda Fallon, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Engineering with NUI Galway’s College of Engineering and Informatics, said: “Human Factors and Ergonomics play a key role with respect to well-being and performance in high reliability systems including aviation, aerospace, nuclear power and off-shore oil and gas. Recently, methods developed for these safety-related industries have been adapted for application in healthcare where they have made a significant contribution to assuring patient safety and the reduction in the potential for human error.”

To register for the conferences visit http://www.conference.ie/Conferences/index.asp?Conference=225

-ENDS-