Leigh Signal

Tracey Leigh Signal is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at Massey University, specialising in fatigue and sleep, especially in relation to the aviation industry, and in women and children.

Academic career

Signal trained as a commercial pilot before completing a Master's degree on shiftwork in air traffic services at Massey University, and a PhD in public health at the University of Otago. Her doctoral thesis was titled Scheduled napping on the night shift: consequences for the performance and neurophysiological alertness of air traffic controllers, and was supervised by Philippa Gander. Signal then joined the faculty at Massey, rising to full professor in 2021.

Signal works in the Fatigue Management and Sleep Health group of the Sleep/Wake Centre at Massey University. Her research interests cover two areas, She studies sleep and fatigue avoidance, identification and management in the workplace, particularly in the aviation industry, and in relation to workplace deaths and accidents. She also researches healthy sleep in women and children, changes in sleep that occur at different life stages, and the relationship between sleep and sporting performance. She published a book Sleeping better in pregnancy after experiencing problems sleeping during her own second pregnancy.

Signal has been an invited member of two International Civil Aviation Organisation Fatigue Risk Management Task Forces, and has contributed to national and global standards on civil aviation. She has provided expert advice to the Coroner's Office, WorkSafe New Zealand and to the Transport Accident Investigation Commission.

Selected works