Dr. Nathan Lau, Associate Professor of ISE, VT, will give a talk entitled 'Human Factors in Nuclear Engineering: Lessons and Legacies of the Three Mile Island Accident'

October 24, 2025

@10:10 am, 6-051 VTRC, Arlington (in-person), 440 Goodwin Hall, Blacksburg
For remote access, click here to register.

Abstract
Three Miles Island (TMI) remains the only accident of nuclear power plants in the US that resulted in a small release of radiation that did not amount to much more an X-ray scan for individuals in the area. However, this accident in 1979 ultimately led to a halt in the construction of nuclear power plants for almost 30 years. This accident has also become the hallmark impetus for human factors engineering in safety-critical systems. This seminar reviews the critical equipment failures and human decisions in the TMI accident to characterize the Human Factors Engineering (HFE) and Human Systems Integration (HSI) effort mandated by the regulatory review process of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The seminar includes recent HFE and HSI research efforts in nuclear power generation and concludes with the relevance of HSI for professionals in the domain. Irrespective of the education disciplines, professionals within the nuclear power industry will likely interface with or manage HFE work in their careers to ensure safety and productivity.

Bio
Dr. Lau is an Associate Professor at the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making and Chair of the Accreditation Committee of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He is an author for over 100 peer-reviewed publications on human-AI interaction, user interface design, and human performance assessment in safety-critical systems, such as nuclear power, medicine, and search and rescue.

He received his BASc and PhD degrees from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto in 2004 and 2012, respectively. Prior to joining VT, he conducted research at the OECD Halden Reactor Project, where he developed ecological displays for a full-scope nuclear power plant simulator and situation awareness measures for representative process control settings. His research contributes to control room design and performance assessment relevant for attaining regulatory approval for new and modernizing nuclear power plants. He also worked as a human factors engineer at NuScale Power Inc. and interface designer at Acuite Advanced Process Graphics.