Valeri F. Venda

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

Venda is a laureate of The Distinguished International Colleague Award for outstanding contribution to the human factors field (US, 1996) and an Honorary Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (USA, 2002).

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

He introduced the concepts of transformational theory of systems dynamics, transformations (the emergence of wave-like transformational processes in the economy, energy, science, etc.), and co-adaptation (the process of mutual adaptation in living, inanimate and complex systems, in particular ecosystems and man-machine-environment systems). In 1995 he published the book "Dynamics in ergonomics, psychology, and decisions: Introduction to Ergodynamics", which is an introduction to ergodynamics (the process of mutual adaptation between a trained worker and structurally progressing instruments of labor).

He invented, designed, created, and explored a new kind of safe workplace for assembling electronic devices in a practical manner. A feature of his work was the indirect observation of workers in their operations when assembling electronic devices. He obtained a patent for this invention on June 22, 1995.

From 1992 to 2002, Venda was a member of the editorial board of the International Journal Human–Computer Interaction (US). From 1996 to 2005 he was a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics (Poland).

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. Starting in 2002, he was a professor of ergonomics at National University, in San Diego, California. From 2007 to 2009 he worked as a pro-rector of the Yalta University of Management and International Relations and a professor at the Crimean Humanitarian University in Yalta.

In 1984 Valeri Venda was awarded International Prize for outstanding research in psychology by joint decision of USSR Academy of Science and academies of science of nine other socialist countries.

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 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).

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.

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.

Venda tried to revise the traditional psychological view of learning processing. Unlike Herman Ebbinghaus's unified exponential theory of teaching (1890), Venda proposed a transformational learning theory (based on his transformational laws). He presented this as a wave-shaped learning curve with periods of decline in the transition from one activity structure to the next. His transformational learning theory greatly expands the possibilities of analyzing regularities and predicting individual development and systemic progress.