Oral History Interview: Pascale Carayon (0901)

Abstract

In her 2008 interview with Sandy Pfahler, Pascale Carayon talks about her career in industrial and human factors engineering in France and the US from the 1980s to the late 2000s. Professor Carayon was born in Marseille, France and received her first two degrees in Industrial Engineering from École Centrale de Paris. Her PhD was awarded in 1988 from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She discusses her research in ergonomics and job design in relationship to productivity. At the time of the interview, Professor Carayon was doing research involving human factors and ergonomics in health care and patient safety and is associate director of the AHRQ T32 training grant to the UW Population Health Sciences department for “PhD Training in Population Health & Quality Improvement.” In 1995 Professor Carayon returned to France for four years and was on the faculty of the École des Mines de Nancy, France. She discusses the challenges she encountered while there. In the interview, she also discusses such topics as: life in Paris, important influences on her career, diversity issues, and her personal life outside of academia. This interview was conducted for inclusion in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Oral History project.