About
James Norman, PhD
Dr. James Norman is an Airbus 330 pilot for a US airline who applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance aviation safety. He holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Sciences from the University of North Dakota, where his research examined factors affecting voluntary safety reporting among pilots, maintenance, dispatchers and controllers.
At the intersection of emerging technology and safety science, he has developed neural networks to model pilot fatigue and created innovative natural language processing (NLP) applications that reveal novel relationships in safety data. His research bridges Safety-II principles and resilience engineering with advanced data analytics, influenced by mentors Drs. Erik Hollnagel and Sidney Dekker.
A three-time recipient of his airline’s Award for Excellence and the 2022 Mosby Award winner, Dr. Norman has leveraged open-source data to model safety cases for general aviation and contributed to aviation data fusion initiatives. He is active with the Flight Safety Foundation, Royal Aeronautical Society, and EUROCONTROL. His recent publication “Dark Knights” (2024) explored resilience in commercial aviation, with two forthcoming papers analyzing near-misses using NLP and the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM).
Through Open Climb, he offers expertise in applying AI/ML techniques to safety management systems, expanding beyond the industry’s conventional focus on efficiency and compliance-based metrics to develop proactive, data-driven approaches – a necessity for high reliability organizations.
The Crewmembers
Meet the highly experienced and credentialed experts who make Open Climb Consulting fly.
Riana Steen, PhD
Associate Professor
Riana is at BI Stavanger and affiliated with the Department of Accounting, Auditing and Business Administration. She also holds an Adjunct Professor position in Risk Management and Societal Safety at UiS. Riana has a PhD in Risk Management and Social Safety. Riana’s research areas are in risk management, resilience and business management.
Riccardo Patriarca, PhD
Tenure Track Assistant Professor
Dr Patriarca is an expert of complex cyber-socio-technical systems, resilience engineering, and safety management. Author of 150+ peer-reviewed papers, he also serves on the editorial boards of leading journals—including Safety Science and Reliability Engineering & System Safety. His work has contributed to safety management in aerospace and other high-stakes industries and is celebrated by scholars and practitioners alike.
Bob Waltz, PhD
Aviation Leader
Bob is an award-winning aviation leader with global Fortune 500 experience, $3.5B ops oversight, and deep expertise in flight operations, SMS, and safety research. Former Part 119 Director of Operations and international consultant on airline strategy, innovation, and advanced training.
Josué E. Maia França, PhD
Professor
Josue is a human factors expert holding a PhD in offshore safety, with postdoctoral research in maritime safety, and multiple graduate degrees. He is a FRAM and Safety-II specialist, Petrobras engineer since 2008, and contributor to global safety research, including CCPS and numerous international safety journals.
Xavier Olive, PhD
Senior Research Scientist
Xavier is a research scientist and is passionate about aviation, maps and data. His research interests include data science, machine learning and decision science as applied to aviation, with a particular focus on optimisation, anomaly and pattern detection. These applications range from air traffic management, operations, predictive maintenance, safety analyses and risk assessment.
Additionally, he is a skilled Python programmer who contributes to open aviation data initiatives, including the OpenSky Network, which collects and processes air traffic data from ADS-B sources.