Alan D. Swain

Dr. Alan D. Swain III was a human factors engineer who specialized in weapons systems and nuclear power plants. He was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, where he developed the technique for human error-rate prediction. According to a bibliometrics analysis performed in 2020, Swain is the most highly cited author in the field of human reliability analysis.
Swain co-authored the Handbook of Human Reliability Analysis with Emphasis on Nuclear Power Plant Applications, which became a basic guide for many in the human factors field.

Education

Swain graduated from Marion Harding High School in 1941. He received an MA in 1948, and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1953, from The Ohio State University.

Swain served as a radioman-navigator in the United States Navy during World War II, from 1942 to 1945.
In 1961, Swain joined Sandia National Laboratories as a human factors engineer. At Sandia, Swain developed the technique for human error-rate prediction, and collected human performance data for the Sandia Human Error Rate Bank.

Swain was a Fellow in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
In 1984, Swain received the HFES Jack A. Kraft Innovator award