Valeri F. Venda

Valerii Fedorovich Venda (born August 2, 1937 in Semferopol, Soviet Union) is a Soviet and Russian psychologist, engineer, and designer. His main research areas are perception (or apperception) and cognition, the connection (attachment) between anatomical (structural) perceptual information and complex thoughts, which includes, problem solving; the process of mutual adaptation and transitions in general systems theory, the psychology of engineering and ergonomics; systems of hybrid intellect, and ergodynamics.

Biography In 1954 Venda graduated with honors from Men's High School Number 14 in Semferopol, in Crimea. In 1960 he graduated from The Moscow Power Engineering Institute with a degree in Automation of Production Processes. From 1960 onward, as an employee of the Central Research Institute of Complex Automation, he designed and created a mnemonic scheme and computer monitoring system panel for the power unit of Mosenergo Venda realized that he lacked the necessary knowledge of engineering as he tried to create a computerized information system. An expert, the Western psychologist and professor D. A. Oshanin, who had lived in Paris for a long time and worked at the Sorbonne, came to help him. Oshanin and Venda began actively integrating psychological and engineering methodology Their familiarity with V. A. Lektorskii's work on methodology and his original philosophical interpretation of general systems theory played an important role in their work. Additionally, Venda received personal permission from the Minister of Culture E. A. Furtseva to study the works of K.S. Malevich, V. V. Kandinsky, and other scientists which were then stored as classified. Venda used this knowledge to create usable information technology designs.

In early 1963, at the age of 25, Venda was appointed head of the Department of Ergonomics at the All-Russian Institute of Technical Aesthetics. In 1967 Venda defended his graduate dissertation on the subject "Methods for increasing the efficiency of automated control system power operations". He became a senior research fellow working in technical aesthetics (the title was approved by the Higher Certification Commission of the USSR in 1971). In 1973, at the age of thirty-five, Venda defended his doctoral dissertation on "Structural information models and the complexity of operational tasks" in psychological science. Beginning in 1974, he served as head of the department of engineering psychology at The Psychology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In addition, he worked as a professor at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers (MIIT) from 1977 to 1988. In 1975 he became the head of an international program on engineering psychology and labor safety in socialist countries. Due to the achievements of this program, Venda was awarded the title of Laureat for the International Prize for Outstanding Collaborative Research in Psychology by the USSR Academy of Sciences in conjunction with the Academies of Sciences of the nine socialist countries (German Democratic Republic, Berlin, October 1984).

From 1975 to 1980, Venda directed three sections of "Avant-Garde", the USSR's national program on military ergonomics. He was a member of the executive committee of the Psychological Society of the USSR (1975–1980) as well as a professor at the V. I. Lenin Military-Political Academy (1975–1987). In 1984 he became a professor specializing in the field of "labor psychology and engineering psychology". Beginning in 1985, he served as head of the department of education for the Union-wide Research Institute of Higher Education Problems and of the Union-wide Task Complex Program for Improving the Quality of Higher Education in the USSR. In the 1980s, after creating a transformational theory of system dynamics and analyzing Gorbachev's Perestroika plan (link to), Venda proposed a project for transforming the socialist economy of the USSR into a market economy without large risks and losses for the country or the people. Venda addressed the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government of the USSR, but they rejected his proposal and proposed that he go abroad to work as a teacher.

In 1990 Venda became a professor at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland where he taught ergonomics and introduction to personal computers. Beginning in 1991, he directed the First program in Canada program for ergonomics and labor safety at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. In 2000 he served as the senior advisor for engineering psychology and usability at the USWeb company in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2001 he served as the senior advisor for ergonomics and usability at DST Systems in Kansas. and an Honorary Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (USA, 2002).

M.D. Vacin, the science writer for the newspaper "Pravda" has long worked to popularize Venda's works.

In 1996 he was the first person received a new Distinguished International Colleague Award for outstanding contribution to the human factors and ergonomics field from USA Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

In 2002 he was the first person elected Honorary fellow USA Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Publication Monographs

Shorter books

Selected papers