The Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering is a top-ranked program, offering a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering (BSISE) accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). It is one of the best known and highest-rated ISE programs in the United States. Career opportunities for ISEs have never been better, and our graduates work for manufacturing facilities, distribution warehouses, hospitals, airlines, railroads, banks, amusement parks, management consulting, military, and federal government organizations.
Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics (HFEE) is concerned with ways of designing jobs, machines, operations, and work environments so they are compatible with human capacities and limitations. The HFEE practitioner is called upon both to apply existing human performance knowledge to the design or modification of equipment and also to generate new experimental data required for design.
The Ph.D. degree in the HFEE option emphasizes both methodology and content areas. Foundation coursework includes a detailed study of existing research, design, and evaluation methods that are appropriate to human factors engineering and ergonomics. Additionally, content courses include sensory ergonomics dealing with sensory capabilities and limitations of humans, physical ergonomics dealing with biomechanics and work physiology, cognitive ergonomics dealing with human information processing, and macroergonomics dealing with group processes.
The Ph.D. curriculum builds upon the M.S. curriculum, and assumes the graduate student has already had behavioral research experience and developed engineering skills with a thesis. The Ph.D. program is heavily oriented toward independent research and the development of expertise in a particular area of ergonomics. This expertise is demonstrated by in-depth interdisciplinary coursework and dissertation research. Doctoral students are encouraged to become involved in laboratory research during the first year in the graduate program so that by the time they begin dissertation research they will have one to three years of laboratory experience.
Virginia Tech
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
250 Durham Hall (0118)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
http://ise.vt.edu
Maury A. Nussbaum, PhD, CPE
(540) 231-6053
nussbaum@vt.edu
