Professor Katie Plant is a Professor of Human Factors in the Centre for Human Factors and Systems Science at UniSC. She gained her PhD in Human Factors from the University of Southampton (UK) and holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Bath (UK).
Katie has worked across multiple domains in transportation, defence and healthcare. Her research applies theories and methods for the design and evaluation of complex sociotechnical systems. Katie specialises in qualitative data collection and analysis and is interested in how people make decisions in safety critical systems.
Before joining UniSC, Katie spent 17 years at the University of Southampton in their Transportation Research Group. She Co-Directed the Centre of Doctoral Training for Complex Integrated Systems for Defence and Security and ran human factors teaching across the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Katie is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors and a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia. Katie is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and has a lot of experience designing and delivering courses in human factors, safety and method application for students in higher education and colleagues in industry.
Professional Social Media
Awards
- Author team for best paper award (Smeed Prize) for ‘A mixed methods approach to understanding narrow passage behaviours’ at 56th Universities Transport Study Group conference (July 2024, Huddersfield, UK)
- Runner up in Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year in national Patient Safety Awards for project: Supporting women/birthing people and their families who experience a caesarean birth under general anaesthetic (2023)
- Top cited article award in Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries for ‘Gender perspectives on electric micromobility use’ (2023)
- Author team for best paper award for ‘Resilient strategies for socially compliant autonomous assistive dressing robots’ at 1st International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (July 2023, Edinburgh, UK)
- Supervisor recipient of International Dieter W. Jahns Student Practitioner Award from Foundation of Professional Ergonomics (2022)
- Team recipient of CIEHF Presidents Award (Bid writer and Deputy Director of team at the time) award to honour institutions or organisational groups whose work has made a significant contribution to original research, the development of methodology, or application of knowledge within the field of ergonomics (2018)
- University of Southampton staff achievement award for lead contribution to £2M successful funding bid from National Institute of Health Research (2018)
- Saul Prize in Aviation Safety Research awarded by Honourable Company of Air Pilots (2014)
Professional memberships
- Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors
- Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society, Division of Academics, Researchers and Teachers in Psychology
Potential research projects for HDR and Honours students
- Application of human factors methods (e.g., inter-method comparison, human vs. machine)
- Accident analysis and comparison (e.g., common themes in oil & gas incidents)
- Cross-modal training
Research areas
- Decision making (aiding and training)
- Incident and accident analysis
- Transportation safety (inc. cross-modal training)
Teaching areas
- Human factors for engineers
- Human factors methods
- Human factor and safety for rail engineers
- Human factors on the flight deck
- Human factors on the flight deck
- Stakeholder engagement and community involvement
- Ethical practice
- Ethical practice
- Gender equity in transportation research
Katie Plant’s specialist areas of knowledge include transportation safety including interactions between road users and cross-modal training, aeronautical critical decision making, application of human factors methods and systems thinking.