Mark Young
President Elect
I have worked in ergonomics / human factors for nearly 30 years, in both academia and industry. Early on in that career, I made CIEHF my professional home, and have long been an active supporter of the Institute – as a postgraduate working on the conference secretariat, then on Council as Chair of the PR & Communications Committee between 2007 and 2011. I re-joined Council in 2018. This is an exciting time for CIEHF as we fully emerge from the pandemic years stronger than ever, flourishing where other learned societies have struggled. We recently rebranded, we have a new CEO and we are building a new strategy to take us forward. In 2024, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of our professional body, and I have been chairing a working group to mark this milestone with a public exhibition, seeking to promote wider interest in the Institute and human factors in line with our strategy. Building on this, my priorities for CIEHF are to raise our profile and, in particular, to foster the growth of ‘grassroots’ ergonomics and human factors. Industry is crying out for trained human factors professionals while university programmes have been declining. I aim to address this through reinvigorating our engagement with schools, stimulating demand for such courses and, ultimately, inspiring the next generation of human factors specialists.