Avi Harel - Biography  (also available in Hebrew)

Education

Avi Harel received his B.Sc. (1970) and M.Sc. (1972) degrees in mathematics from the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel.  For his M.Sc. degree he received an outstanding grade.  For his master's thesis he was granted the Landau's award.  Between the years 1985 and 1989 Avi studied Behavioral and Management Sciences at the faculty of Industrial Engineering of the Technion.

Prior activities

• Chair of the Technical Committee (TC) for Usability of the Israeli Institute of Standards (SII)
• Chair of the Israeli Iltam-Incose working group for Assuring System Resilience
• Member of the Israeli Safety Engineers Association (ISEA) Committee for defining  the role of Safety Engineers,
• Member of the Israeli Safety Engineers Association (ISEA) Committee for defining  practices for risk management in safety engineering
• Chair of the Subcommittee of the Usability TC for Assuring the Usability of Alarms in Medical Equipment
• Chair of the Subcommittee of the Usability TC for Assuring the Usability of Emergency Alarms
• Chair of the Subcommittee of the Usability TC for Assuring the Usability of Alarms in Control Systems
• Member of the Subcommittee of the Usability TC for Assuring the Usability of Everyday Things
• Board member of the Israeli branch of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (IHFES)

Early works

Between 1975-1992 Avi worked for Rafael, the Armament Development Authority of Israel, during which he gained experience in working with a wide range of applications, platforms, operating systems, programming languages and development environments. Between 1977-1980 he was the manager of 30 people in the Software Department of Rafael's Division of Electronics. Between 1980-1983 he was the manager of the leading project of the Electronics Division of Rafael.  Between 1983-1985 Avi designed the software for a touch operated telephone set for the Design Interpretive department of BNR, Canada. Between 1985-1987 he developed a generator of user interfaces, for use by frequent users.  Between 1988-91 he conducted various projects in Human Factors engineering in Rafael.  His work experience includes software engineering, system engineering and ergonomics in Rafael, Nortel, IBM, Attunity and Ergolight.

Ergolight

Since 1983, Avi developed a methodology for developing user interfaces, based on human factors. After resigning from Rafael in 1992, he designed a user interface for the Haifa Scientific Center of IBM.  Between 1993-1995 Avi designed the user documentation for two software companies.  In 1997 Avi Harel founded ErgoLight Usability Software and initiated the design of the ErgoLight  tools for testing the user activity when using Windows applications. Since then he has designed and implemented several user-oriented software tools, including tools for modular business-oriented website design, for reliable inter-system and human-computer interaction, and various tools for diagnostic testing, providing reports about design flaws that hamper the system operation.

Tutorials

ENASE 2023 - Integration design: challenges, principles, methods

INCOSE HSI WS 2022 - HSI Engineering: Theory and Framework for STS Integration

INCOSE NEFWS 2022 - Tutorial #104 - Behavioral Twins: Model-based System Integration

New - Integration Engineering: Challenges, Principles, Methods

Resilience assurance

Since 2007 Avi focuses on developing and publishing methods for preventing human errors in system operation. This activity is conducted in collaboration with the Israeli branch of INCOSE and with the Gordon Center for Systems Engineering of the Technion, Haifa.