BEHAVIORAL CYBERNETICS - Key Persons
Frank Hatch holds a Ph.D. in Behavioral Cybernetics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Since his youth he has performed as a modern dancer and choreographer/producer. He has been involved in founding academic programs in human motion and dance in three American universities. Since 1973 he has applied his experience and background in human motion and function to a broad spectrum of projects in the fields of psychology, medicine, education, industry and business. The outcome of his work is Maietta-Hatch Kinaesthetics.
Harvey M. Sussman, Ph.D., holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Linguistics. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of speech production, speech perception, language and the brain, and neurolinguistics. Dr. Sussman's publications span such topics as speech motor control, coarticulatory dynamics, hemispheric specialization, stuttering, developmental apraxia, aphasia, and most recently, neuronal modeling of phonological language acquisition. He has received the Editors' Award from the Journal of Speech & Hearing Research. Dr. Sussman twice received Teaching Excellence awards from the College of Liberal Arts, and was a recent recipient of the College of Communication Research Award. Dr. Sussman serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Brain and Language. In the Fall of 1988, Dr. Sussman was named to the R.P. Doherty Centennial Professorship in Communication.
John Gould has engaged in human factors research since the late 1960s. He initiated empirical studies of programming and software design and use.
Karl Ulrich Smith (1907-1994) - K.U. to friends and colleagues - was born in Zanesville, Ohio. His pivotal contributions to ergonomic/ human factors (E/HF) science have been recognized by the 1994 Founders Award from the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), the 1986 Paul M. Fitts Award from the US Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) for outstanding contributions to the education and training of human factors specialists, and establishment in 1997 of the IEA Student Award in his name. He has summarized his role in the development of the field with two publications (Smith 1987; 1988). A more recent publication summarizes his contributions to the emergence of E/HF science and the establishment of the IEA (Smith and Smith 2000).
Lenny Maietta (1950-2018) held a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Fielding Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. She has been engaged in the body processes of human development and personal achievement since her youth. She worked as a clinician in the USA and in Germany until 1977 when she began applying her background and education to the development of programs and training for human skills as varied as parent-infant handling, nursing, and special education methods for teachers, hipotherapy and horsemanship. Programs she has co-developed with Dr. Frank Hatch include couples relations, family interactions and leadership development. Together with Dr. Hatch she is the founder of Maietta-Hatch Kinaesthetics
Michael J. Smith has conducted studies on the applications of ergonomics and indsutrial psychology for improving working conditions.He was formerly a research program director at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).He is interested in studying the effects of advanced technology, organizational design, working conditions and community development on stress, safety, productivity and performance.He has undertaken projects dealing with redesigning working conditions and community conditions that reduce employee stress, improve health status, reduce injuries and increase positive attitude.
Henning, R., & Sauter, S. (1996). Work-physiological synchronization as a determinant of performance in repetitive computer work. Biological Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0301051195051627
Steven Sauter has had a remarkable and unique impact on the field of occupational safety and health through his tireless and dedicated efforts to integrate the behavioral sciences into the mainstream of research and practice aimed at reducing injury and promoting worker well being.
Dr. Sauter was the NIOSH chair of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Organization of Work Team during the first ten years of NORA, and was the principle force behind the development of a national organization of work research agenda and the growth in the prominence of organization of work in the occupational health research community.
He has always had a strong appreciation of the full cycle of research, from exploratory and etiologic research to implementation and evaluation of practical solutions in the workplace. He has overseen a coordinated program of research on organization of work and musculoskeletal disorders for the past 14 years, which has had demonstrable effects on reducing risks to workers. For example, his first project in NIOSH was a study of rest break scheduling in "light, repetitive work." After conducting controlled laboratory studies, the results were used as a basis for a series of frequent rest break interventions conducted at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sites which demonstrated the ease of application of the rest break intervention as well as its effectiveness. The frequent rest schedule was subsequently adopted by the IRS sites where it had been tested.
Dr. Sauter has edited several influential books, many of which are used as textbooks in universities in both the U.S. and Europe. He is a visionary in the work organization field, with a gift for identifying emerging issues of importance such as long hours of work and health disparities. He also has made great contributions through leadership in developing and promoting occupational health psychology as an academic discipline and applied research field. His collaboration with the American Psychological Association (APA) resulted in the creation of a new specialty within Psychology to meet the growing demands for a national reservoir of researchers and practitioners able to address organization of work issues. In addition, he promoted the formation of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology that was recently chartered through Portland State University, and has worked with the international community to foster coordination with sister organizations. As a result of these efforts, five international NIOSH/APA conferences have taken place since 1990. Through collaboration with APA, he also founded the Journal of Occupational Psychology.
During his career, Dr. Sauter's research activities have impacted workplaces and workers alike. He is presented with the Keogh Award for his exemplary accomplishments, impact, and influence.
Murphy, L., & Sauter, S. (2003). The USA perspective: Current issues and trends in the management of work stress. Australian Psychologist. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/00050060310001707157/full
Sauter, S., & Jr, J. H. (1999). Occupational health psychology: origins, context, and direction. Professional Psychology: Research and. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pro/30/2/117/
Sauter, S., & Murphy, L. (2003). Monitoring the changing organization of work: international practices and new developments in the United States. Sozial-Und Präventivmedizin. Retrieved from http://link.
Sauter, S., Schleifer, L., & Knutson, S. (1991). Work posture, workstation design, and musculoskeletal discomfort in a VDT data entry task. Human Factors: The Journal. Retrieved from http://hfs.sagepub.com/content/33/2/151.short
Schleifer, L., & Sauter, S. (1985). Controlling glare problems in the VDT work environment. Library Hi Tech. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/eb047616
Thomas J. Smith has research and teaching experience and funding support encompassing many areas of human factors/ergonomics, including human performance variability, educational ergonomics, human error and hazard management, occupational ergonomics, occupational health and safety, surface transportation, occupancy quality, patient safety, work physiology, kinesiology, and ergonomics certification systems. He is a research associate with the School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota. He is a Certified Human Factors Professional with over 100 publications.
His honors include serving as senior editor for a recent special issue of Ergonomics in Design dealing with the topic of globalization of ergonomics, serving as chair of the Professional Standards and Education Standing Committee for the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), originator and committee member for the IEA K.U. Smith Student Award, editorial board member for the journal Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, director and past president of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Upper Midwest Chapter, general chair for the 2001 HFES Annual Meeting, member of the 2002 State of Minnesota Ergonomics Task Force, and member of the Dakota County (Minnesota) University of Minnesota Extension Committee.