Not many students get the opportunity to go abroad to study, teach and conduct research. Ms. Andrea Villa Garcia is the proud recipient of being a Spanish Fulbright Scholar from Spain. She is part of the U.S. government’s flagship program of international educational and cultural exchange where she was selected the opportunity for research, study, the exchange of ideas and contributions to finding solutions to challenges facing the aerospace industry.
Ms. Garcia will be visiting the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) for a 3-month rotation. She has joined the Aerospace Human Factors Research Division and is collaborating with the AAM-520 NAS Human Factors Safety Research branch. Currently, she is involved in a non-experimental research effort aiming to study the effects of the stress management course taught to FAA Academy trainees.
Before moving to Oklahoma, Andrea spent her academic year taking courses from the Master of Human Factors at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, as part of her Fulbright project.
Ms. Garcia is a civil servant and works as a safety inspector for the Spanish Aviation Safety and Security Agency (AESA), the appointed authority for the audit, oversight and planning of the activities related with civil aviation in Spain. Andrea joined the Air Traffic Services/Air Traffic Management Division in AESA in 2018, where she audits Air Traffic Services Providers, visits different control centers at towers throughout the year. As part of her duties, she reviews how aspects such as stress, fatigue, rostering systems or the use of psychoactive substances by air traffic controllers may affect safety levels and the implementation and effectiveness of measures to mitigate those risks.
In 2012, Ms. Garcia earned her master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Polytechnical University of Madrid and worked for 5 years in the Single European Sky Research Program (SESAR). She was involved in projects covering air traffic controllers’ workload prediction and measurement, air traffic complexity and airspace capacity determination, trajectory-based operations and optimal rostering and airspace configurations. After that, Ms. Garcia worked as a systems engineer developing an advanced air traffic control position for the UK service provider. Welcome Ms. Garcia to the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center!
