Leia Stirling smiles and poses for a portrait.

Leia Stirling

Associate Professor

Location

1813

Biography

Personal Pronouns

she/her

Additional Title(s)

  • NIOSH COHSE-OSE Director
  • IOE Department DEI Committee Chair
  • College of Engineering IOE DEI Department Lead

Leia Stirling is an Associate Professor in Industrial and Operations Engineering and Robotics at the University of Michigan, a Core Faculty in the Center for Ergonomics, an Affiliate Faculty in the Space Institute, and the University of Michigan Center for Occupational Health and Safety Engineering (COHSE) Director of Occupational Safety Engineering and Ergonomics. She received her B.S. (2003) and M.S. (2005) in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her Ph.D. (2008) in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.  In her interdisciplinary research group, they bring together methods from human factors, biomechanics, and robotics. They strive to understand the physical and cognitive interactions for goal-oriented human task performance and support operational decision making that relies on manual task performance. These goals include reducing musculoskeletal injury risks, supporting telehealth, and improving technology usability.

Education

  • Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
  • Postdoctoral Fellow Boston Children’s Hospital, 2009, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
  • M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 2005, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
  • B.S., University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 2003

Research Interests

  • Biomechanics
  • Decision Support Systems
  • Human Factors
  • Human-autonomy/robot interaction
  • Human Motion
  • Multimodal Displays
  • Work Measurement
  • Wearable Technology

Research areas:
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Professional Service

  • AIAA Associate Fellow
  • 2019-2020 AAAS Leshner Leadership Public Engagement Fellow
  • IEEE Senior member 
  • HFES Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group Chair Elect 

Awards

  • University of Michigan North Campus Deans’ Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award (2023)
  • University of Michigan Industrial and Operations Engineering Wilson Faculty Fellowship (2021)
  • University of Illinois Outstanding Recent Alumnus Award (2020)
  • NAE Frontiers of Engineering Symposium Participant (2016)
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2015)