Occupational Safety Engineering And Ergonomics
Learn how you can develop and manage safe and healthy environments for workers by engineering solutions to minimize injuries and hazards. There is high demand for skilled professionals and well trained researchers with experience in Occupational Safety Engineering and Ergonomics, and efforts to improve workplace well being have an impact. Improved working environments, safer machinery, better worker training, and dramatic changes in the nature of work itself, have resulted in the decline of both fatal and non-fatal workplace injuries. Yet occupational injury remains a major national concern and economic burden. Through the OSE program, you can contribute to the design, analysis, implementation, and improvement of facilities, equipment, tools, and processes to assure the safety and well-being of human resources in all work environments and the surrounding communities.
Key Topics:
- Biomechanics
- Cognitive Ergonomics
- Human-Robot Interaction
- Occupational Safety
- Physical Ergonomics
- Robotics
Area Lead: Leia Stirling
Foundation Courses
IOE 434 Human Error and Complex System Failures
Advisory prerequisites: IOE 333, IOE 536, or permission of instructor. (3 credits)
Introduction to a new systems-oriented approach to safety management and the analysis of complex system failures. The course covers a wide range of factors contributing to system failures: human perceptual and cognitive abilities and limitations, the design of modern technologies and interfaces, and biases in accident investigation and error analysis. Recent concepts in the area of high-reliability organizations and resilience engineering are reviewed. Students perform systems analysis of actual mishaps and disasters in various domains, including various modes of transportation, process control, and health care.
IOE 533 (MFG 535) Human Motor Behavior and Engineering Systems
Advisory prerequisites: IOE 333 and IOE 366. (3 credits)
This course is designed to provide a basic perspective of the major processes of human motor behavior. Emphasis will be placed on understanding motor control and man-(machine)-environment interaction. Information processing will be presented and linked to motor behavior. Application of theories to the design of the workplace, controls, and tools will be underlined and illustrated by substantial examples.
Suggested courses to learn more about the human systems integration program area
Physical ergonomics
IOE 438 Occupational Safety Management
IOE 463 (MFG 463). Measurement and Design of Work
IOE 491 Special Topics in Industrial and Operations Engineering: Quantifying Human Motion Through Wearable Sensors
IOE 534 (BIOMEDE 534) (MFG 534). Occupational Biomechanics
Cognitive ergonomics
IOE 430 Global Cultural Systems Engineering
IOE 436 Human Factors in Computer Systems
IOE 437 Automotive Human Factors
IOE 536 Cognitive Ergonomics and Human System Integration
Methods
IOE 465 Design of Experiments.
IOE 491 Special Topics in Industrial and Operations Engineering: Designing for User Experience
IOE 570 (Stats 570) Experimental Design