Safety center physiologist honored for contributions to human factors, ergonomics disciplines

  • Published
  • By Technical Sgt. Kathee Mullins
  • Air Force Safety Center Public Affairs
Maj. Joe Pugliese, assigned to the Human Factors Division, Air Force Safety Center (AFSEC), received the Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award on Oct. 1, in San Diego, Calif., for his support of the Military Flight Operations Quality Assurance Program (MFOQA) and Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) efforts managed by the Aviation Safety Division.

"Maj. Pugliese has shown commendable initiative in developing and leading critical programs sustaining U.S. National Security Strategy," said Dr. Antonio Cortés, Aviation Safety Division. "Integrating human factors, he developed and led operational countermeasure aircrew training programs and comprehensive aviation and ground safety investigation programs. His training was benchmarked by Air Combat Command where he oversaw the delivery of human factors training to more than 3,000 Airmen."

"Joe's outreach to our MFOQA has been key to making the technical analyses we produce intelligible and actionable by our three user communities: aircrew, safety professionals, and operations leaders," said Kathleen Armstrong, Director of Proactive Aviation Safety. "He is actively working with our team to ascertain the viability of event coding using Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) or the existing ASAP taxonomy in order to create a comprehensive hazard registry for use by analysts and safety professionals. These programs have benefited greatly from his outreach."

Pugliese's outreach to ASAP helped discern the ergonomic and human performance issues applicable to the hazards identified through voluntary reporting. He also authored the human factors content of the safety center's Proactive Aviation Safety web pages that are used throughout the Air Force, allied forces, and sister services to learn about our life-saving initiatives.

"I am humbled and honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award," Pugliese said. "There are a lot of talented people doing great things in this business and I am truly proud to be a part of the human factors, safety team."

The Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award was presented by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. The organization advocates the systematic use of knowledge to achieve compatibility in the design of interactive systems comprised of people, machines, and environments to ensure their effectiveness, safety, and ease of performance.