Guest — Philippe Kilpatrick

The more advanced the technology, the more the outcome depends on the human using it. That's the paradox at the heart of aviation safety, and it's Philippe Kilpatrick's job to manage it. He works in Human Factors, a field sitting at the intersection of psychology and engineering, and his path started with a psych degree and a few years driving a forklift. His work is really about the psychology of learning and behaviour: how air traffic controllers absorb new information under pressure, how habits form and get retrained, and where AI should (and shouldn't) sit alongside human judgement. In the sky, people and technology don't just coexist, they have to work as one. It's a career most people have never heard of, but the stakes and the payoff are both real.