Influencers

Sidney Dekker was born near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He studied psychology at the University of Nijmegen and Leiden University and earned his PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering from The Ohio State University in 1996. Since then, he has gained worldwide acclaim for his work on human error and safety. Sidney is currently Professor in the School of Communication, Humanities and Social Sciences at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Previously at Lund University in Sweden, he founded the Leonardo da Vinci Laboratory for Complexity and Systems Thinking and also learned to fly the Boeing 737NG. He worked as part-time airline pilot for a company out of Copenhagen, Denmark. Sidney has lived and worked in seven countries and speaks several languages.

Erik Hollnagel was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds an M.Sc. in psychology from the University of Copenhagen, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Aarhus (Denmark).

Erik Hollnagel is presently Senior Professor of Patient Safety at the University of Jönköping, Sweden. Erik is also Adjunct Professor at Central Queensland University (Australia), Visiting Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Macquarie University (Australia), Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Technische Universitat München (Germany), and Professor Emeritus at the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDA) at Linköping University (LIU), Sweden.

Erik Hollnagel is an internationally recognised specialist in the fields of resilience engineering, system safety, human reliability analysis, cognitive systems engineering, and intelligent man-machine systems. He is the author of more than 500 publications including twenty-two books, articles from recognised journals, conference papers, and reports.

Todd Conklin has spent 27 years as a Senior Advisor for Organizational and Safety Culture at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Conklin has honed his craft in Human Performance at Los Alamos and through his interactions as an international speaker and thought leader in the realm of Operational learning. Conklin holds a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of New Mexico. Conklin has authored several bestselling books, including The 5 Principles of Human Performance, Pre-Accident Investigations, and Pre-Accident Investigations: Better Questions. He speaks all over the world to executives, groups, and work teams who are interested in better understanding the relationship between the workers in the field and the organization’s systems, processes, and programs. Conklin hosts the award-winning Pre-Accident Investigation Podcast.

Conklin lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and thinks that Human Performance is the most meaningful work he has ever had the opportunity to live and teach.

Dr. David Woods founded Resilience Engineering as an approach to safety in complex systems in 2000-2003 as part of the response to several NASA accidents.

David is currently professor at the Ohio State University in Dept. of Integrated Systems Engineering with pioneering research on the interaction between humans and technology in risk critical activities for almost 40 years. His books on safety and resilience engineering include Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts (2006), Behind Human Error (2010), and Resilience Engineering in Practice (2011).

He is one of the founders Adaptive Capacity Labs, a resilience engineering consultancy.

Dr. Richard Cook is a research scientist, physician, and pioneer in Resilience Engineering for safety in complex risk-critical worlds, and author of the seminal paper “How Complex Systems Fail” (video) as well as Behind Human Error (2010). Richard is presently a research scientist in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at the Ohio State University and emeritus professor of healthcare systems safety at Sweden’s KTH.

He is one of the founders Adaptive Capacity Labs, a resilience engineering consultancy.

Steven is a systems ergonomist/human factors specialist and work psychologist with a background in practice and research in safety-critical industries. His main interest is human and system behaviour in the context of safety-related organisations. He seeks to enable improvement via a combination of systems thinking, design thinking and humanistic thinking. Steven is a Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Specialist with the CIEHF and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. He currently works as a human factors and safety specialist in air traffic control and aviation worldwide, and assists various healthcare safety initiatives. He is Adjunct Associate Professor at University of the Sunshine Coast, Centre for Human Factors & Sociotechnical Systems. Steven blogs in a personal capacity, also at humanisticsystems.com. 

Rob has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including: risk, culture, security, government, education, heavy industry, corporate and community sectors. He holds formal qualifications in Education, Social Policy, Social Psychology, Safety and Pastoral Psychology. and is the author of seven books as well as numerous chapters in books and professional publications. Rob is principal contributor the Riskex Blog which receives over 16 million visits per year. Rob’s highly successful video series Risky Conversations attracts thousands of views each month. Rob is an Honorary Fellow at Federation University.

He is also the founding Director of Human Dymensions Pty Ltd, a global consultancy in leadership, learning and risk, located in Linz, Austria. Rob also founded the Social Psychology of Risk and Principal of the Centre for Leadership and Learning in Risk, which has over 300 students including 150 overseas students and SPoR Coaches. Rob conducts International workshops each year in Austria and Canada.

Rob has high level experience in crisis management having managed an Emergency Centre during the Canberra Bushfires in 2003 (550 homes destroyed and 5 fatalities) receiving the Chief Minister’s Award. Rob served on the Emergency Coordination Operations Group (ECOG) at Beaconsfield following Rockfall crisis in 2006 which received extensive International media attention. Beaconsfield was the largest media event in Australian History.

He’s also developed a unique diagnostic methodology (MiProfile) which assesses culture and risk in organisations. The Global MiProfile Culture Diagnostic has an extensive database of over 60,000 participants which enables industry benchmarking across construction, mining, industry and government sectors.