Dear Engineering Systems Community:

Join us this Tuesday 10/25 in 32-141 for our next Fall Transportation Seminar with Prof. Nancy Leveson, MIT. Lunch will be served.

Cheers,
Maite Pena-Alcaraz
MIT Transportation Club

Transportation@MIT & Transportation Club joint Fall 2011 Seminar Series
Tuesday, October 25, 12-1pm, Stata (32-141)
"Safety in Transportation Systems"
Prof. Nancy Leveson, MIT
Abstract: Traditional models of causality and techniques for designing safety into transportation systems have limited effectiveness in the complex, software-intensive, socio-technical systems we are building today: the causes of accidents we are increasingly seeing differ from those for which the traditional techniques were developed and are rooted in the unique nature of software, new types of human error arising from the changing roles humans are playing in systems, and increasing complexity. Prof. Leveson will describe a new approach to safety engineering, based on systems theory and a new model of causality, that addresses these new challenges. This new approach has been shown to be applicable to a wide variety of systems and to outperform traditional analysis and design techniques on industrial projects. The results of a current NASA contract will be described where the new techniques and tools are being applied to NextGen.

Dr. Nancy Leveson has worked in the field of system safety for 30 years. Currently she is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and has received many awards such as the ACM Allen Newell Award for outstanding computer science research and the ACM Sigsoft Outstanding Research Award. She has published over 200 research papers and is author of a book, Safeware: System Safety and Computers, published by Addison-Wesley and recently translated into Japanese and a new book Engineering a Safer World to be published by MIT Press in 2011. Prof. Leveson conducts research on all aspects of system safety including design, operations, management, and social aspects and consults extensively in many industries, including aerospace, defense, transportation, chemical plants, medical devices, nuclear power, hospitals, and oil and gas production. She served on the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and the Baker Panel investigating safety culture in the Texas City Oil Refinery explosion and has been involved in many accident investigations including serving as an expert advisor to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and the Presidential Oil Spill Commission (Deepwater Horizon). Currently she is on advisory committees to the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy.