Deborah E. Dickerson
Associate Professor
Personal website Google Scholar
Short Bio
Deborah Dickerson is an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at Virginia Tech. She is the director of the Center for Innovation in Construction Safety, Health, and Wellbeing. Since joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, she has established an integrated research, instructional, and service program emphasizing innovative design solutions to occupational risks; and, intervention strategies to improve stakeholder willingness to adopt those innovations. Certified as a safety professional and industrial hygienist, Deborah entered her current academic career with over ten years of professional experience conducting health hazard exposure assessment and designing control strategies to reduce worker exposure to occupational health hazards. These prior experiences directly inform her current scholarly pursuits; in that the importance of eliminating hazards at the design-stage of equipment and materials, rather than attempting to control exposures during work operations, became quite evident.
Research Areas
Main Area: Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics
- Prevention through Design
- Usability
- Design of tools, equipment, processes
- Industrial Hygiene
- Process Safety
- Risk-based Facility Maintenance Management
- Ph.D., Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virgainia Tech, 2007
- M.S., Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2006
- M.S., Ecology, North Carolina State University, 1999
- B.S., Biology, Virginia Tech, 1996
- Associate Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, 2018-present
- Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (School of Construction), Virginia Tech, 2015-2018
- Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (School of Construction), Virginia Tech, 2007-2015
- Co-Director, Environmental, Health, and Safety Services at Virginia Tech, 2001-2006
- Manager of Industrial Hygiene, Environmental, Health, and Safety Services at Virginia Tech, 1999-2001
- Principles of Industrial Hygiene
- Occupational Safety
- Prevention through Design
- Construction Safety, Health, and Environment
- Construction Management
- Building System Design
- Indoor Environmental Quality
- Introduction to Human Factors
- Forsyth, J.B., Martin, T.L., Young-Corbett, D.E., Dorsa, E. (2012). Feasibility of Intelligent Monitoring of Construction Workers for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. Journal of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. 9(3): 505-515.
- Weidman, J., Dickerson, D. E., & Koebel, C. T. (2015). Intervention to improve purchasing decision-maker perceptions of ventilated tools. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 141(6), 04015007.
- Weidman, J., Dickerson, D., & Koebel, C. T. (2015). Prevention through Design: A Macroergonomic Conceptual Approach to Risk Reduction. IIE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors, 3(1), 24-36.
- Dickerson, D. E., & Ackerman, P. J. (2016). Risk-based maintenance management of US public school facilities. Green Building, 145, 685-692.
- Young-Corbett. (2014). Prevention through Design (PtD): Health Hazards in Asphalt Roofing. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 140(9): September 2014.
- Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
- American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA)
- Academy of Industrial Hygiene
- American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH)
- Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH)
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP)
- Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM)
Deborah Dickerson
- 540-449-2068
- debdickerson@vt.edu
-
544 Whittemore Hall
(MC 0118)
1185 Perry Street
Blacksburg, VA 24061