Pitt Writes the Book On Workplace Safety

Joel Haight

Ten years after establishing the first industrial engineering program in 1921, Pitt launched a new concept—“safety engineering.” After a long hiatus, it relaunched in 2016 under the leadership and innovation of one of the country’s leading safety engineers, Joel Haight. 

“The safety engineer is a critical role that requires an individual to understand, characterize, quantify, and fix the complex hazards of dynamic industrial processes,” says Haight, professor of industrial engineering. “In today’s complex working environments, whether an assembly line, hospital, or nuclear plant, safety engineering maintains worker health, ensures efficiency, and helps to reduce costs.”

Haight has edited and co-authored all three editions of the “Safety Professionals Handbook,” a critical reference for safety professionals. For its newest edition, Haight added three new sections covering global sustainability, management systems, and leadership, and expanded on former topics like ergonomics, fire protection engineering, engineering management, and risk management. Karen Bursic, professor of industrial engineering and undergraduate program director at Pitt, worked with him to expand the sections on economics and people management.