Associate Professor Najmedin Meshkati received the Orange County Engineering Council's Distinguished Engineering Educator Award at the Council's Annual Honors and Awards Banquet on February 24 in Yorba Linda, California.  Prof. Meshkati teaches Human Factors Engineering in the Epstein ISE Department's undergraduate program.   One of the department's most interdisciplinary scholars and accomplished teachers, he also teaches popular Freshman Seminars for the University, heavily subscribed Freshman Academy courses for the Viterbi School, Environmental Quality Management for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and professional short courses for the Aviation Safety Program.  He has won the Epstein ISE Departmental Teaching Award twice, and the Civil and Environmental Departmental Teaching Award once.  He won the Viterbi School's NGC Teaching Excellence Award in 2000.

 

Prof. Meshkati's research focuses on the interactions and interfaces of human-organziational-engineered subsystems of complex, large-scale technological systems.  Examples include nuclear power, transportation systems (all modes), and petrochemical plants.  Prof. Meshkati has been a member of the USC faculty since 1985.  He is a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, an AT&T Faculty Fellow in Industrial Ecology, has serverd two terms as a NASA Faculty Fellow, and received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1989.