Idaho National Laboratory scientist receives Distinguished Service Award
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — Distinguished scientist and department manager Ron Boring has won the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s 2022 Arnold M. Small and Betty M. Sanders President's Distinguished Service Award.
According to the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, this award “recognizes individuals whose career-long contributions have brought honor to the profession and the Society.” The award will be presented on Oct. 10 at the 66th HFES International Annual Meeting, a gathering Boring has chaired for four years.
“I was very surprised and humbled when I learned I would receive this award. It is the highest award offered in my field in the U.S. I'm honestly speechless,” Boring said. “I'm grateful to the many people who have worked with me over the years to make an impact.”
Human factors and ergonomics is a field of study that applies health and safety principles to the environment in which people work. It focuses on evaluating tasks, jobs, products and systems, and then making them as compatible with human function as possible.
“Ron is a passionate leader in human factors research and development,” said Jess Gehin, Idaho National Laboratory's associate laboratory director for Nuclear Science and Technology. “He leads a team that is making a difference in the operation of our current nuclear plants and for future advanced reactors. I am very pleased that his efforts are being recognized through this prestigious award.”
Boring has led research for Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER), Guideline for Operator Nuclear Usability and Knowledge Elicitation (GONUKE), and Advanced Nuclear Interface Modeling Environment (ANIME), among others. He also established the Human Systems Simulation Laboratory. These software solutions, guidance tools and modeling environments have greatly contributed to the improvement of human-machine interfaces in the nuclear energy industry.
“Winning this award is gratifying, but it is not a capstone,” Boring said. “I believe the Human Factors and Reliability Department at INL is just getting started. The world is safer because of what we're doing!”
Boring has worked at INL for over 17 years but took a two-year hiatus to work at Sandia National Laboratories and worked for a year at the Halden Reactor Project in Norway. He returned to INL and accepted his current position as manager of the Human Factors and Reliability Department in October 2019.
He previously received the Don Miller Award for lifetime achievement in human factors from the American Nuclear Society in 2021 and became a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in 2020.
