Kapil Chalil Madathil won the 2013 Dieter W. Jahns Student Practitioner Award. Mr. Madathil, a student at Clemson University, is the fourth recipient of the award. The award was presented to Mr. Madathil by Dieter's wife Karel at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2013 Annual Meeting in San Diego. The award included an engraved, acrylic award plus a $500 check.
Mr. Madathil won the award for his project: “Design and Development of a State-Wide Research Permissions Management System”. He developed the Research Permissions Management System (RPMS) to electronically capture and manage research permissions, consents, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy authorizations for research. RPMS development followed a user-centered design approach involving user research, needs identification and analysis, specification and concept development, and the development of a detailed design followed by iterative testing and refinement. This system is open-source and can be accessed at https://github.com/HSSC/RPMS.
Mr. Madathil, a PhD student in Industrial Engineering, stated, “Thank you for this award. I am truly honored and humbled. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Professional Ergonomics and to the family of Dieter W. Jahns for instituting this award. This is indeed a great way to motivate students in human factors and ergonomics.”
A Certificate of Appreciation was also presented to runner-up, Jie (Victor) Zhou West Virginia University, for his project on “Trunk Kinematics under Sudden Loading Impact when Adopting Different Foot Postures”. Mr. Zhou said, “Winning the runner up of the student practitioner award is definitely encouraging. I am very appreciative of this.”
