Awatef Ergai

Dr. Awatef Ergai received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, focusing on human factors engineering and statistics from Clemson University. Her research focuses on applying systems engineering and human factors tools to identify problematic areas and data analytics to optimize the integration of humans in healthcare systems by designing human-centered processes and developing new tools to improve patient safety and healthcare quality, thereby reducing costs. During her post-doctoral position at the Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute (HSyE) and under the Patient Safety Learning Laboratory funded by AHRQ, she collaborated with researchers from the Brigham and Women's Hospital to develop multiple Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) applications to improve patient safety. Also, in partnership with Main Medical Center, she Co-lead the NEU-HSyE team on the ACGME Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments Grant titled "Interprofessional Partnership to Advance Care and Education (iPACE) Unit" funded by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER). Currently, she is working on multiple research projects with researchers from the WellStar Health System. Among these are "Wellness and Resiliency of Healthcare Workers during COVID-19" and "Decontamination and Reuse of N95 Respirators with UVGI". She also received the prestigious KSU interdisciplinary I3 award on her research project: Investigating Postpartum Stress levels and Cognitive Load During Discharge. Additionally, she is passionate about furthering engineering and medical education and is researching ways to improve engineering students' teamwork skills. She is also collaborating with faculty from the Wellstar Nursing School to investigate the types and rate of administration medication errors of nursing students during simulation and examine the issues of low reporting.