Kathy H. Abbott, PhD, Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor for Flight Deck Human Factors
Manual Flight in Air Carrier Training and Operations
Dr. Kathy Abbott has over 35 years of experience specializing in aviation human factors. She specializes in human performance and human error, systems design and analysis, flight crew training/qualification, and flight crew operations and procedures. In these areas, she serves as the FAA liaison to industry and other government and international agencies.
Dr. Abbott has led the integration of human engineering into FAA/international regulatory material and policies for flight guidance systems, avionics, all weather operations, Required Navigation Performance, crew qualification, data communication, instrument procedure design criteria, electronic flight bags, electronic displays, organizational culture, design-related pilot error, and other areas. She has been involved extensively in accident, incident, and other safety data analysis. Dr. Abbott came to the FAA from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). At NASA she was responsible for leading analytical, simulation, and flight studies with the specific objective of improving aviation safety and operational efficiency.