Degrees in Occupational Ergonomics and Safety

The Department of Work Environment offers Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Occupational Ergonomics and Safety. The Department also offers two related graduate certificate programs: Identification and Control of Ergonomic Hazards and Job Stress and Healthy Job Redesign.

Faculty: Maria Brunette, Bryan Buchholz, Robert Karasek, Laura Punnett

Ergonomics provides the scientific basis for optimized design of the work environment compatible with the capabilities and limitations of the working population. An ergonomist is trained to recognize, evaluate, and control hazards in the work environment that result from a poor fit between the worker and the workplace; these hazards may result in acute injury, chronic musculoskeletal disorders, or mental/psychosocial stress. The physical demands of machines, tools, and work methods must accommodate the range in size, strength, mobility, and endurance of the workforce. Information flow must be structured so that the worker can process and respond appropriately without being mentally overstressed to the degree that errors result. Job content and work organization should be designed to optimize skill utilization and learning, physiological and psychological well-being.

The concentration in Ergonomics and Safety is designed to develop an understanding of human anatomy, physiology, and psychology, of industrial hygiene and epidemiology as well as modern manufacturing technology and work organization. It provides a multidisciplinary background in these basic areas, as well as their application to the practical problems in ergonomics and safety that are encountered in industrial and service environments. Students in ergonomics follow one of several distinct tracks: safety practitioner, industrial hygiene, psychosocial work design, musculoskeletal epidemiology, biomechanics, or psychosocial stress research.

All occupational ergonomics and safety students must take the Work Environment Core and the Ergonomics and Safety concentration courses. Eighteen credits in electives are permitted. These electives can be selected by students in accordance with their background, interests, and career goals. It is expected that the set of chosen electives will represent a coherent "track" or "option" within the concentration.

Areas of doctoral research include field evaluation of ergonomic and safety exposures and hazard surveillance, biomechanical modeling, psychophysical methods for exposure assessment; technical and social factors in the reorganization of work; strategies for injury prevention and control; and evaluation of control measure effectiveness. Required courses include one or more of the advanced seminars in the series 19.632-643, 19.610, 19.612,19.684, or 19.685. A student will ordinarily take two or more of these, depending upon the selected area of research.