Shawn Pruchnicki Ph.D., FRAeS ATP CFII MEI(Cognitive Engineering – 2018) is an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, in the College of Engineering. Originally trained as a pharmacist/toxicologist, he has also worked as a firefighter/paramedic, an airline pilot, and later for NASA prior to coming to OSU. During his airline time as a pilot and Captain, he was also trained in accident investigation at the NTSB Training Center. While flying he served as the ALPA Chief Accident Investigator at his airline and the director of human factors for ALPA International. In these roles he participated or led the investigation of five airline accidents and over 200 incidents in addition to other extensive domestic and international aviation safety work. He is an internationally recognized expert in various human factors (HF) disciplines including safety culture. Since his airline days, he has since gone on to educate other airlines and industries on how to develop safety reporting programs and how to perform more effective and meaningful accident/incident investigations by including HF science. Shawn has an extensive safety concentrated research base and is well published in both NASA and FAA technical documents in addition to a broad range of scientific literature.

He is frequently requested to lecture or provide keynote presentations for universities, conferences, and organizations all over the world. In April of 2024, he was interviewed extensively by the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and Investigations regarding how to interview Boeing the aircraft manufacture once more information became readily available. After two weeks of these interviews, he was asked to testify to the U.S. Senate regarding the safety culture concerns at Boeing Aircraft manufacturing. Afterwards, he was invited to be a guest on the Dr. Phil show on the same subject but with time allowed for questions in addition to many live news shows all over the world.

Prior to coming to OSU, he flew as a Captain with a Delta Connection carrier for 10 years flying the Canadair CL-65 regional jetliner (CRJ- 200/700/900). He has over 4,300 hours of flight time of which 2,900 is turbojet and has a type rating in the CRJ in addition to CFI, CFII and MEI and has given approximately 600 hours of flight instruction. During this time at his airline, Shawn was extensively involved with both local and national safety work for the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) and held many national and local positions including Director of Human Factors, local safety committee Vice-Chair, and both Assistant Chief and Chief Accident Investigator for ALPA. He has also served on or co-chaired several national aviation working groups with the FAA. With ALPA, he has worked numerous accident investigations in conjunction with the NTSB including the Comair 5191 Lexington, KY accident where he was ALPA’s human factors investigator.

Shawn has been interviewed by hundreds of media organizations in the United States including The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CNN, FOX News, and NPR to name a few, as well as international media in Slovakia, Ukraine, and outlets in the Middle East, including Al Jazeera, during these interviews. He has worked with Erin Burnett, Carol Costello, Wolf Blitzer, Richard Quest, and Anderson Cooper to name just a few. He has also been a subject matter expert for several Hollywood feature films and featured in six National Geographic “Air Crash Investigators” programs where he is now a regular contributor.

Shawn also owns a consulting business – Human Factors Investigation and Education (HFIE). His company performs safety work across many domains some of which include, EMS, firefighting, electric power plants, aviation (international & domestic), health care, law enforcement, and workplace safety to name just a few. A sample of government agencies with which he has worked include, NASA, FAA, CAMI and the NTSB. He also has extensive legal experience testifying as an aviation or human factors expert across various domains.

Shawn’s current type of work is well supported with not only an extensive education but also other backgrounds. For example, Shawn graduated from the Ohio State University in 1989 with a BS in Pharmacy and worked as a pharmacist full time for 10 years at the Central Ohio Poison Control Center in Columbus, specializing in the field of toxicology. He just recently retired as a contingent specialist at the Poison center after 32 years of service. From 1989 until 1999 he was also paramedic/ firefighter with Jackson Township Fire Department in Grove City, Ohio. Since 1990, he has presented and published academically in the fields of toxicology, aviation, and accident investigation. He has made over 26 international and 72 national presentations. He has published in over 28 peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He has also co-authored 12 NASA & FAA technical reports. And finally, he co-authored one book chapter on resilience engineering and 6 professional magazine articles.

He has received specific human factors training with ALPA, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the NTSB in Washington D.C. & with Dr. Sidney Dekker in Lund University, Lund, Sweden. He completed his PhD in the summer of 2018 in cognitive engineering at Ohio State with Dr. David Woods.

He is an internationally recognized expert in accident causation, human error, and the design and use of automated systems. His current interest and focus include the role that safety culture, human performance, and human error play in understanding accident causation. He is especially interested in how these concepts when viewed through the lens of complexity theory can affect our construction of causation and understanding of human error. Shawn was recently awarded Fellow status in the Royal Aeronautical Society, is a member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI), the Association for Aviation Psychology (APA) and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES).

Education:

BS Pharmacy, The Ohio State University
MS Aeronautical Science/Human Factors , Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
PhD Cognitive Engineering, The Ohio State University