May 31, 2024

Harriet Lester is the incoming President for the Aerospace Human Factors Association (AsHFA).

She is Eastern Regional Flight Surgeon (RFS), a position she has served in since 2001, at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Aerospace Medicine (AAM), Aviation Safety (AVS), with aeromedical oversight responsibility for New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. She concurrently served as Acting Senior Regional Flight Surgeon in 2022 through the height of the pandemic, with national oversight responsibility for all FAA aeromedical regions.
   Dr. Lester is involved with mentoring and STEM, serving on the Advisory Council of York College Aviation Institute (City College of New York, CCNY), as well as on the Wings Club History and Education Committee. She is involved with efforts to address the problem of Laser Strikes, and is also involved with ICAO related initiatives. She co-created the “Virtual Site Visit” that enabled Aviation Medical Examiner designee site visit audits without travel, with more than 2000 performed to date in the United States and internationally. She has been part of many emergency responses, starting with the post-9/11 rapid expansion of Federal Air Marshals up through COVID. She helped coordinate the very first centralized hiring initiative for FAA Air Traffic Controllers and continues to support new hiring initiatives.
   Dr. Lester is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA), Civil Aviation Medical Association (CAMA), American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), and AsMA Human Factors Association (AsHFA). She has served as AsMA Council Member-at-Large from 2021–2024, as AsHFA Executive Committee Member-At-Large since 2018, and as AsHFA Program Chair since 2022. She has served 15 consecutive years as Chair and Co-Chair of the FAA Regional Occupational Safety and Health Committee (OSHECCOM), bringing together management and labor and continues to create numerous collaborations to promote understanding of the “Special Senses” and Human Factors to support the safety of the National Airspace System. Board Certified in Ophthalmology, she is a past recipient of the Thomas J. and Margaret D. Tredici Award for contributions to aerospace ophthalmology and vision science, and a past recipient of the Marie Marvingt Award for excellence and innovation.