Paul Salmon1

Professor of Human Factors, University of the Sunshine Coast
Paul Salmon is a Professor of Human Factors at the University of the Sunshine Coast and is creator and director of the centre for human factors and sociotechnical systems. He is also currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow.

He has many years experience of applied Human Factors research across a range of safety critical domains, including road and rail safety, defence, workplace safety, aviation, emergency management, sport, and outdoor education.

Paul has co-authored 11 books, over 110 peer review journal articles, and numerous conference articles and book chapters. Along with his collaborators, he was awarded the 2007 Royal Aeronautical Society Hodgson Prize for a co-authored paper in the society’s Aeronautical journal and the 2008 Ergonomics Society’s President’s Medal.

Paul was named as one of three finalists in the 2011 Scopus Young Australian Researcher of the Year Award. He also recently won best research paper awards at the Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education conference and the Australian Aviation Psychology Association Symposium and was the recipient of USC's 2014 VC and presidents medal for research excellence.

Paul's current research interests include complexity and sociotechnical systems theory and safety, the development and application of accident prediction, analysis, and prevention methods, integrating human factors knowledge and methods in design processes, situation awareness and teamwork, the application of systems thinking to wicked safety-related problems and systems analysis and design.

Paul is also interested more generally in the development of Human Factors methods and the practical translation of Human Factors research across the safety critical domains. He currently leads ARC and NHMRC grants focusing on road user behaviour and the design of road systems and the development of accident and injury surveillance systems in the led outdoor activity domain.