Associate professor Zahra Mohaghegh of the Department of Nuclear, Plasma & Radiological Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been honored with the Mid-Career Achievement (MCA) grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This prestigious grant recognizes mid-career scientists, providing them with the opportunity to expand and advance their research initiatives.
Professor Mohaghegh’s NSF-funded research project is titled “Interactions of Human Performance, Physical Failure Mechanisms, and Organizational Phenomena in Socio-Technical Risk Analysis of Complex Technological Systems.”
“Socio-technical risk analysis explores how technical risk factors—such as material degradation—interact with human behavior, organizational dynamics, and policy influences, potentially leading to complex technological accidents,” Mohaghegh said. “With emerging reactor technologies and evolving regulatory landscapes, socio-technical risk analysis in nuclear energy has never been more critical. It is essential to navigate the uncertainties posed by these cross-disciplinary changes and turn them into opportunities for safer, more efficient energy generation.”
Although the project primarily focuses on nuclear energy systems, its findings will have broad implications for deploying new technologies across various industries. The project aims to enhance the modeling of potential risks in technological systems, apply new methods across different industries and regulatory settings, and create an educational platform for socio-technical risk analysis.
Mohaghegh, a Donald Biggar Willett Faculty Scholar in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at Illinois Grainger Engineering, also serves as the Director of the Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory, where her work focuses on advancing risk science and its applications to ensure the safety and economic viability of complex technological systems, including commercial nuclear power plants, advanced reactors, civil aviation, and the oil industry. Her research includes probabilistic risk assessment, probabilistic physics of failure analysis, human-system reliability modeling, risk-informed decision-making, and uncertainty analysis.
Throughout her career, Professor Mohaghegh has applied her expertise in nuclear risk analysis to a wide range of technological challenges, contributing to improved policymaking and regulation across multiple sectors. She has served on the Committee on “Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology” for the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and is currently a member of the U.S. National Academies’ Committee on “Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Coast Guard Certificate of Compliance Examination Program for Gas Carriers.”