CORRECTLY says "For decades Najmedin Meshkati
proudly designed advanced technologies for America, including support for the B-2
stealth bomber." It does NOT say that I have been an aircraft
designer. I am NOT an aerospace engineer and I don't have any expertise in
aircraft design, I am NOT a weapon or a bomber designer. Period. My scholarly
and teaching efforts are on human-machine systems integration (such mental
workload measurement) has been drawn upon, and my graduate students have worked
on the B2 cockpit design. Period.
My area of expertise is in the interdisciplinary field of
"Human Factors", which is a rather new field (almost 50 years old) and my
scholarly work and practice for the last 25 years deals with human-machine
systems integration in complex technological systems. In other terms, my interdisciplinary research, for the last 25
years, has been concerned primarily with the risk reduction and reliability
enhancement of complex and large-scale technological systems, which include
such systems as nuclear power and chemical processing plants and aviation
systems.
A characteristic common to these
high-risk systems is that the effects of human error in these systems are often
neither observable nor reversible; therefore, error recovery is either too late
or impossible. Potential catastrophic breakdowns of these systems, which often
are characterized as 'low probability, high consequence', pose serious threats
for workers in the plant, the local public, and possibly the neighboring region
and parts of the whole country [e.g., in the case of the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant (which I visited in 1997) accident in 1986, radiation fallout and
thousands of radiation sickness in Ukraine and Belarus]. For the foreseeable
future, despite increasing levels of computerization and automation, human
operators will remain in charge of the day-to-day controlling and monitoring of
these systems. Thus, the safe and efficient operation of these technological
systems is a function of the interactions among their human (i.e., personnel
and organizational) and engineered/technological subsystems.
This is the area of my research
and I am pleased to report that this field - human factors and ergonomics -- is
now being used in many industries to reduce human error and the resulting
accidents. One (and again ONE) area of application of human factors
engineering is in the deign of cockpit of all types of aircrafts: commercial
aviation, Boeing passenger planes (and control rooms of nuclear plants and
refineries).
As we talk in my classes, YOUR lives and well-being,
literally from the cradle, and sorry to say, "grave", are at the mercy of this
field - human factors and ergonomics. For instance, according
to a study by the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Heath System (November,
1999), preventable medical errors in the United
States each year result in "up to 98,000 deaths and $29 Billion
added cost." An accident often is called 'an error with sad consequences' and
human error has been identified as one of primary causes of (technological)
systems' accidents, such as "crew failure" that has been identified by Boeing Commercial
Aircraft Company, as the root-cause of 65.4% of all world-wide jet transport
accidents since the dawn of commercial jet operations in 1959.
In fact, I am proud that I received this year's (2007) Human
Factors and Ergonomic Society's (HFES) (www.hfes.org)
prestigious Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award, for my "scholarly efforts
on human factors of complex, large-scale technological systems...(and) efforts
to enhance public awareness of critical human factors issues...." and
being recognized for "significant activities that broaden awareness of the
existence of the human factors/ergonomics profession and the benefits it brings
to humankind."
I hope that the above explanation set the record straight,
help all who think of me as an "aircraft designer" and a bomber maker, to
change their perception and understand the true nature of my work and, more
importantly, the VITAL contribution of the filed of human factors and
ergonomic. This could be the only "silver lining" of this cloud of confusion,
misunderstanding and misrepresentation.
Thank you for your attention.
Najmedin Meshkati
September 5, 2007
ps, For further information concerning my work and professional
interests, please visit the following web site and review a few of our/students'
projects which are also posted on this site:
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~meshkati/
