The Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC) has played a key role in organizing and planning the RM4CSS Meeting. Professor Zahra Mohaghegh served as the meeting’s Technical Program Co-Chair, and the SoTeRiA Laboratory-led panel discussions participated in technical sessions and presented research papers.
The meeting was not primarily for experts to talk to experts. Instead, it welcomed management, analysts, safety professionals, risk personnel, researchers, and students from all over the world for discussions on classical and multidisciplinary issues of risk, safety, reliability, and security of nuclear power and other complex systems.
From the opening plenary on “Risk-Informed Decision Making” to the closing plenary on “History and Perspectives of Risk Management”, leading experts discussed cutting edge approaches for risk assessment and risk management. The opening plenary, designed by Assistant Prof. Zahra Mohaghegh (NPRE), featured prominent speakers including, NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis – also the meeting’s honorary chair, Doug Coe (NRC), Prof. Ali Mosleh (UMD), Prof. Antoine Rauzy (Ecole Polytechnique), and Rick Grantom (So. Texas Project). The closing plenary, designed by Dr. Ron Knief (SNL), an NPRE alumnus, featured PRA-luminary Dr. B. John Garrick (PLG [ret.]), former-astronaut Dr. Sid Gutierrez (SNL), and Dr. William Mullins (HQ USAF).
In total, the meeting featured eight panels and 23 technical sessions, bringing together specialists to address: risk assessment & management, socio-technical systems risk modeling, cybersecurity, risk management for digital I & C, uncertainty modeling, simulation-based PRA, Fire PRA, external events modeling, physics of failure, systems thinking approaches to safety and security, complexity, emergency planning, risk-informed resolution of generic safety issue 191, aviation risk analysis, healthcare risk management, risk perception, expert elicitation, human and organizational factors, and safety culture.