Short Line Safety Institute promotes Leone, expands research efforts

WASHINGTON – The Short Line Safety Institute has promoted Julia Leone to assistant director of research and organizational development, an expanded role that includes leading efforts to improve delivery and outcome for the organization’s safety and research programs.

“Our program expansion has come as a direct result of research led by Julia Leone. Improvements to processes leading to improved training outcomes have also been identified and implemented through her analysis and in-person observations,” Tom Murta, executive director of Short Line Safety Institute, said in a statement today. “Julia will continue to assist the SLSI in identifying and developing the next generation of programs, while ensuring that current programs deliver on their objectives, and support our mission to continuously increase Safety Culture on railroads across the country.”

Leone, who holds a doctorate in industrial and organizational psychology, has developed a systematic approach to evaluating completed Safety Culture Assessments, which in turn has led to the creation of new SLSI programs.

In her tenure at SLSI, Leone has presented research to a variety of industry groups including the Transportation Research Board, and has been a featured speaker at industry rail events.

“In my five years of service at SLSI, I’ve seen rapid growth in programs as a result of SCA fidelity studies and analysis of participant feedback from all of our offerings,” Leone said. “It’s been an honor to assist railroads in their quest to continuously improve safety culture. I’m particularly looking forward to fully implementing follow up coaching calls with SCA participants to track progress against identified gaps.”