Dr. James Norman

Pilot
The University of North Dakota,
John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences

James Norman flies the A-330 for a US airline and holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Sciences from the University of North Dakota, where he serves as adjunct faculty. His Ph.D. research explored voluntary reporting (ASAP), revealing disparate levels of buy-in and trust across frontline groups. His academic interests include Safety-II, resilience engineering, learning from incidents, and data ethics.

James has been recognized several times for his contributions to aviation safety, receiving his airline’s Award for Excellence, a NASA Space Grant Consortium scholarship, and the Mosby Award (given by industry dispatchers). He is a FOQA gatekeeper for his airline and serves as a mentor pilot.

He is involved with the Flight Safety Foundation, the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Resilience Engineering Association (REA), and EUROCONTROL. He is a peer reviewer for CRC Press, Routledge, HindSight Magazine, and the Journal of Aerospace Information Systems. He also served as guest editor for the REA's newsletter.

James recently published "Dark Knights: Exploring Resilience and Hidden Workarounds in Commercial Aviation" in the journal Safety Science. In 2025, he will publish in a forthcoming book regarding a near miss at JFK, as well as an academic journal article on a near miss at AUS that utilizes natural language processing to model the incident investigation.