Plenary Speaker: Jan Hayes

A middle-aged woman with curly blonde hair and glasses smiling, wearing a purple sweater and a colorful scarf, standing in front of a gray wall.

Professor, RMIT Univesity

Jan has 30 years’ experience in safety and risk management. Her research in organisational accident prevention covers many sectors, such as energy, chemicals, nuclear and aviation.

Jan’s research addresses specifically the organisational causes of accidents and the implications for accident prevention. Her specific interests include operational decision making, safety in design, professionalism, effective regulation and the use of standards. She is Program Leader for the public safety research activities of the Future Fuels CRC and a Board Safety Assurance Adviser for Airservices Australia. Jan is a former member of the Advisory Board of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority.

Her current activities cover academia, consulting and regulation. She is a regular invited speaker at industry events in Australia and internationally. She consults part time with a small group of clients on safety performance improvement projects.

  • Professor Hayes has 30 years’ experience in safety and risk management. Her project experience covers a range of industries, including offshore oil and gas, onshore petrochemicals, gas pipelines, mining, manufacturing and transportation (including air traffic control). She began her career in 1983 in oil and gas process plant operations, and then moved to detailed design. She was involved in the initial Australian oil industry response to the Piper Alpha incident in 1988 and has been working almost exclusively in industrial safety since then.

    Jan was a director and part owner of Qest Consulting Pty Ltd (one of Australia’s best known industrial risk and safety consultancies) between 1991 and 2004.

    Holding a number of operational roles, she managed up to 50 staff and was personally responsible for projects ranging from technical safety studies (such as safety cases, HAZOP studies, QRAs and reliability studies) to organisational psychology reviews and human factors studies.