The annual award honors researchers and teachers who, through collaborations with international and/or inter-regional partners, have “made significant contributions to the success of postgraduate educational programs that include human factors/ergonomics (HFE) courses or substantial HFE content in the curriculum,” according to the IEA website.

 

Yu was recognized for significant contributions to HFE curriculum in India:

 

• He served as the International Principal Investigator on a grant from the Government of India-Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration, or SPARC, to enhance ergonomic education.

• In partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, he gave the keynote address about human sensing analytics at the 2nd International Symposium on Data Analytics, Risk, and Technology.

• He co-organized a full-day workshop on engineering ergonomics at the PREMUS, WDPI, and MYOPAIN 2023 Conference in-person at Bengaluru, India.

• With Professor PK Ray in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur, he co-designed several HFE educational programs, including full and multi-day workshops and an in-person multi-day shortcourse on HFE in healthcare systems. “These programs were free for all students, thereby removing cost barriers,” Yu said.

 

Professor Ray at IIT-Kharagpur credited Yu on the strong bi-directional focus of the India-United States collaboration.

 

“Not only does our collaboration involve his visits and interactions in India, but IIT faculty also got opportunities to visit Purdue to learn about its School of Industrial Engineering via invited lecture, tours, and meetings with faculty,” Ray said. “The lasting impacts of his in-person and virtual interactions undoubtedly introduced and inspired on our students in India the opportunities of HFE for making an impact on our healthcare systems.”

 

Yu said receiving the 2023 IEA/Tsinghua Award with Ray only strengthens his resolve to enrich HFE education in India and the U.S.

 

“It is a tremendous honor to receive recognition at the international level,” Yu said. “I’m extremely thankful to IEA for the award and for Professor Ray and my India colleagues for the collaboration opportunities over the past five years,” Yu said. “Providing educational opportunities for HFE at the international level is a huge need in our field and will foster cross-cultural awareness and understanding of HFE problems and solutions at the global level.”

 

Yu is the Principal Investigator in the Healthcare Ergonomics Analytics Lab (HEAL). He serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and has spent several years as a Summer Faculty Fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory. His group received the 2021 Human Factors Prize by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Earlier in 2023, Yu was named a Fulbright Scholar to Austria; he also was named to the 2023 class of the Rising Stars of Safety by the National Safety Council.