Jim Bagian

Dr. Bagian is a co-founder and the Executive Director of the Center for Risk Analysis Informed Decision Engineering (RAIDE) and is a Professor in the Departments of Industrial and Operations Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan. He has extensive experience in the fields of human factors, aviation, patient and transportation safety, and risk assessment and management. Dr. Bagian was the founding Director of the Center for Healthcare Engineering and Patient Safety at the University of Michigan. Previously he served as the first and founding director of the VA National Center for Patient Safety and as the VA’s first Chief Patient Safety Officer where he developed numerous patient safety related tools and programs that have been adopted nationally and internationally. A NASA astronaut for over 15 years, he is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions including as the lead mission specialist for the first dedicated Life Sciences Spacelab mission. He also served as the Chief Flight Surgeon and Medical Consultant for the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He was elected to two terms as the Chair of the Joint Commission’s Patient Safety Advisory Group and was the Co-chair of the ACGME CLER Committee and was a member of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel from 2006-2018. He was a founding member of the Tactical Combat Casualty Care Committee and was a member of the DOD Trauma and Injury Subcommittee of the Defense Health Board. Bagian holds a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University and a doctorate in medicine from Thomas Jefferson University. He is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine.