Dr. J. Persensky is a Senior Human Factors Consultant at Talisman. J retired from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January 2008 as the Senior Technical Advisor for Human Factors after over 36 years of Government service. During the 27 years he worked at the NRC, he worked in both the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. Prior to Joining the NRC he worked at the National Bureau of Standards (now National Institutes of Standards and Technology).
As the Senior Technical Advisor he was responsible for providing advice in the broad areas of Human Factors applied to nuclear power plant safety, nuclear materials safety, and security. He assisted in the development and implementation of NRC policies and programs related to human performance activities that affect all areas regulated by the NRC, including regulations for staffing, training, operator licensing, simulators, and fitness-for-duty.
Prior to his selection as the senior advisor, Dr. Persensky performed and supervised work in areas related to control station design, training and qualifications, procedures, fitness-for-duty, safety culture, human behavioral modeling, and security. He developed the technical bases for and regulatory review documents and methods, e.g. NUREG-0711 and 0700. He was instrumental in the development of the safety culture enhancements to the Reactor Oversight Process, especially IP 95003. He has also served as the technical lead on special inspection teams in the area of safety culture at Davis-Besse and safety conscious work environment at Salem/Hope Creek.
He served as the NRC representative on the CSNI Working Group on Human and Organizational Factors and the OECD Halden Program Group and has worked with the IAEA on special projects related to safety culture. He also served on standards development committees for ANS-3.1 and several IEEE Human Factors standards from SC-7. He was the Technical Chairman for the last three IEEE Human Factors international conferences in 1996, 2002, and 2007.
Dr. Persensky began his professional career at the National Bureau of Standards as a research psychologist working for agencies such as the US Postal Service, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, among others. He performed research and applied human factors technology to issues of training and qualifications, organizational factors, human system interfaces, procedures, information presentation, staffing, and vigilance as related to safety, security and efficiency.
His undergraduate and graduate degrees are all from the University of Cincinnati in Psychology. He is a member of the American Nuclear Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. During his tenure Dr. Persensky received numerous awards, including Meritorious Service in 2006.