Professor David Woods
Institute for Ergonomics
210 Baker Systems
1971 Neil Avenue
Columbus OH 43210
fax 614-292-7852
email woods.2@osu.edu
Dr. David Woods (Purdue '79) is a professor at Ohio State University in the Institute for Ergonomics and Past-President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. From his initial work following the Three Mile Island accident in nuclear power, to studies of coordination breakdowns between people and automation in aviation accidents, to his role in today’s national debates about patient safety, he has studied how human and team cognition contributes to success and failure in complex, high risk systems. He was on the board of the National Patient Safety Foundation from its founding until 2002 and served as Associate Director of the Veterans Health Administration’s Midwest Center for Inquiry on Patient Safety (1999-2002). He is author of Behind Human Error, received the Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from Human Factors and Ergonomic Society for advancing Cognitive Engineering and its application to safer systems, and received a Laurels Award from Aviation Week and Space Technology (1995) on the human factors of highly automated cockpits. He currently serves on a National Academy of Engineering/ Institute of Medicine Study Panel applying engineering to improve health care systems and on a National Research Council panel on research to define the future of the national air transportation system. short bio pdf