Available supervisors

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Young woman standing in airport, looking out of window at plane

Dr Soufiane Boufous

Areas of research: road safety

Tel: +61 2 9385 6227
Email: soufiane@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • Reporting of aviation crashes in Australian newspapers

Suggested topics include:

  • Airline safety in the age of social media
  • The analysis of digital flight data to monitor the performance of flying students
  • Factors that contribute to pilot shortage in Australia
  • Data integration and aviation safety

Dr Carlo Caponecchia

Areas of research: human factors and safety

Tel: +61 2 9385 7184
Email: carloc@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • Investigating eye tracking technology as a tool to improve the visual scanning techniques of novice pilots

Suggested topics include:

  • Improving the accessibility of air travel for people with disability
  • Use and evaluation of international standards on safety management systems
  • Validation of selection tests for trainee pilots
  • Methods for providing feedback on trainee pilot visual scanning
  • Reliability and usability of methods for understanding complex systems and incidents (e.g., FRAM)
  • Safety management, practices and responsibilities for transnational operations
  • Aviation health and wellbeing: physical and mental health of crew and passengers
  • Improving Injury data classification and management

Professor Brett Molesworth

Areas of research: human factors and aviation safety; pilot risk management; aviation (mis)communication; noise effects; pilot training and performance; cabin safety and passenger behaviour; human performance; remotely piloted aircraft

Tel: +61 2 9385 6757
Email: b.molesworth@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • Using EEG spectral components to assess the fatiguing effect of aircraft noise
  • Effect of tone of feedback on the performance of student pilots
  • Investigating predictors of risk in the general population and the pilot population
  • Pilot psychology: health and wellbeing

Suggested topics include:

  • Road safety: reducing young drivers’ speed behaviour
  • Aviation Safety: Reducing pilots’ miscommunication
  • Aviation Safety: Effect of visual and auditory feedback on student pilots’ learning outcome
  • Aviation Safety: Improving passengers’ recall of information presented in the pre-flight safety briefing
  • Road safety: training young novice drivers where to look to improve speed management
  • Aviation Safety: Understanding communication errors between pilots and air traffic control
  • Aviation Safety: Improving pilots risk management through cognitive integration training

Associate Professor Richard CL Wu

Areas of research: airline management/performance

Tel: +61 2 9385 4191
Email: c.l.wu@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • The impact of personalised mobile marketing on passenger shopping behaviours in the airport terminal
  • Assessing the effect of textual and visual information presentation on the usability of airline web interface with eye-tracker and EEG
  • The impact of personalised mobile marketing on passenger shopping behaviours in the airport terminal
  • Understanding and predicting consumer behaviour based on an analysis of clickstream and frequent flyer data
  • Effects of enterprise bargaining and agreement clauses on operating cost of airline ground crew scheduling

Suggested topics include:

  • Data models on passenger movement patterns in an airport terminal
  • Visual attention of passengers in airport retail shops
  • Air passenger retail purchase modelling and airport terminal space design
  • Reinforcement learning models in airline scheduling

Dr Graham Doig

Areas of research: aircraft and road vehicle aerodynamics, aerodynamic flow control, UAV/drone configurations, drone operations and applications, supersonic aerodynamics, biomimicry fluid dynamics, shock waves and shock reflections, and education research into student participation in project-based learning. 

Email: graham.doig@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • Design and optimisation of solar-powered UAVs
  • Aerodynamic flow control for drones and aircraft
  • Shock wave reflections and interactions with flames and solid surfaces
  • Design and real-world operations of large cargo drones
  • Use of drones for novel environmental and wildlife monitoring applications (in coordination with BEES supervisors)
  • Aerodynamics of road vehicles in cornering conditions
  • Use of AI/machine learning in real-world testing of sub-scale aircraft and full-scale road vehicles
  • Barriers to student participation in co-curricular science and engineering projects

Dr Dominique Estival

Areas of research: language and aviation communication

Tel: +61 401 618 947
Email: d.estival@unsw.edu.au

Recent topics include, for example:

  • Native and non-native English speakers and aviation communication

Suggested topics include:

  • Language as a human factor in aviation
  • Analysis of Pilot-ATC recordings
  • Integration of communication in pilot training