The career, accomplishments and impact of Richard I. Cook

Multiple professional and research communities feel a profound loss at the death of Richard I. Cook. Richard died peacefully at home on August 31, 2022 in the loving care of his wife Karen and his family.

Dr Richard Cook was a polymath who excelled in multiple careers, usually simultaneously. A physician and anaesthesiologist, he was committed to providing personal, safe, and superb care to his patients.

Richard was a Clinical Practitioner, Professor, Field Researcher, Human Factors specialist, Cognitive Systems Engineer, Designer of human-automation systems, Patient Safety Advocate, Change Agent, Teacher, Author, Innovator, Software Engineer, Pioneer of new fields such as Resilience Engineering. As a polymath, he was all of these, because by doing each, he learned more about all. Because he was committed to learning by doing, learning by detailed study of work as done, learning through interdisciplinary inquiry, and learning at the intersections, he was able to build unique expertise that broke traditional categories. This rare form of expertise mattered because he used it to create safety in health care and elsewhere, to lead R&D in unexplored directions, reject intellectual superficiality, and inspire a new generation of researchers, faculty and designers.

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Source: Adaptive Creative Labs, 12 September 2022