1994/1995 Amanda Widdowson

 

Project Title: Safety, Job Satisfaction and Mental Workload: A Comparison of Two Contrasting (London Underground) Lines

 

Pre-MSc Background: BSc Psychological Sciences (Psychology and Biology) but struggled to find a related career.

 

Pre-MSc View of HCI/Cognitive Ergonomics: A vocational use of Psychology

 

Post-MSc View of HCI/Cognitive Ergonomics:

The MSc immediately allowed me to practice Ergonomics. I’ve been employed in that field ever since – its great to be paid to do something I believe in. The terms ‘Human Factors’ and ‘Ergonomics’ seem to be poorly defined. Whilst Human Factors used to encompass Ergonomics, now the terms are interchangeable. I’ve still never heard a good succinct definition of Ergonomics! In my experience, non-ergonomists typically underestimate the scope of the discipline. We still need to keep fighting for greater recognition and understanding of the benefits of Ergonomics.

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Human Factors Consulting Team Lead

Thales Consulting & Engineering (Quintec Associates Ltd)

 – Present (1 year 5 months)Responsible for managing a large team of experienced human factors consultants. The team currently provides human factors expertise for clients in the Defence, Rail and Nuclear industries. Quintec is the leading edge of Thales consulting in the UK, providing management, systems and technology consultancy services to clients who need to deliver technically challenging and complex projects.

Human Factors Function Manager
TubeLines

 –  (5 years 9 months)Professional head of human factors/ergonomics for Tube Lines, (later London Underground), managing a team of human factors professionals of various levels of experience. Responsible for maintaining & developing the competence of those individuals and ensuring all work conducted by the company was compliant with human factors standards & best practice. The majority of the work pertained to London Underground station refurbishments; train design; signalling control centre design; software design, incident investigation and input to safety cases.

Human Factors Integration Manager

Crossrail

 –  (6 months)LondonInitiated human factors strategy for Crossrail

Senior HF Consultant
Vectra Group Ltd

 –  (3 years)

HF Consultant
Network Rail

 –  (2 years)

Senior HF Consultant
BAE Systems

 –  (5 years)

Psychologist

DERA

 –  (3 years)