John Gordon Casali, the John Grado Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, retired in May and has been conferred the title of John Grado Professor Emeritus by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.  

The emeritus title may be conferred on retired faculty members who are specially recommended to the board by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands in recognition of exemplary service to the university. Nominated individuals who are approved by the board receive a copy of the resolution and a certificate of appreciation.

Casali has been a member of the Virginia Tech community for 51 years, with nine years as a student while earning his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, followed by 42 years as a faculty member in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Casali served Virginia Tech as a professor in the human factors engineering and ergonomics group and founded the Auditory Systems Laboratory in 1983 for research on human hearing and acoustics.

He was department head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering from 1995-2002. During this period, he proposed and procured the John Grado Endowment for naming the department and secured two additional large endowments for the Harris Manufacturing Laboratory and Manufacturing Systems Integration Laboratory.

He served as principal or co-principal investigator on over 125 research projects from U.S. military, U.S. government, and corporate sector grants and contracts with a personal funding share of over $10.5 million. He has had significant technology transfer from his research, as exemplified by several auditory training systems being placed at U.S. military installations for soldier use, research protocols being incorporated into national standards and seven U.S. and one European patents. He was recognized with the College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Research in 1998 and 2013 and Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Research in 2002. His research and engineering practice has resulted in his authorship of over 175 publications, including 29 book chapters and 120 refereed papers in journals and conference proceedings, as well as over 170 presentations, including international talks in Brazil, Chile, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and at NATO in Belgium.

He served in leadership roles for several professional organizations, including as president and vice president of the National Hearing Conservation Association, editorial board member for the Human Factors Journal, chair of the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Department Heads, and on five standards committees of the American National Standards Institute.

Casali has received numerous national and international awards for his accomplishments in industrial engineering and human factors engineering, including Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), the IISE Holtzman Distinguished Educator Award, the IISE Baker Award for Research, the HFES Lauer Safety Award, the HFES Fitts Educator Award, and the HFES Kraft Award for human factors applications.

He also received noteworthy recognitions for his research accomplishments in human hearing and acoustics, including the Outstanding Hearing Conservationist award in 2009 and two Best Lecture Awards from the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA). He also received the prestigious Safe-in-Sound Award in 2016 for innovation in hearing conservation, jointly awarded by NHCA and the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Casali made significant contributions to the outreach mission of Virginia Tech, as recognized by the Hansen Outreach Award in 2023 from HFES for broadening applications and benefits of human factors/ergonomics, Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Outreach in 2022 and 2007, and the Outreach Excellence Award from the College of Engineering in 2020 and 2006. His outreach efforts have included the preparation of noise ordinances enacted into local municipality codes, sound level measurements in residential communities and other settings, and appearances at numerous public hearings on zoning, warnings, and noise regulations.

Outside the realm of research but relying on his applied engineering expertise as a consultant, Casali has served over 80 companies, law firms and U.S. government agencies in approximately 150 projects concerning safety, acoustics, product design, and legal support roles as an expert witness.

In the classroom, Casali has taught multiple undergraduate and graduate level courses in human factors engineering, including those on Auditory Displays and Forensics and Litigation in Human Factors Engineering. He received the Dean’s Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Engineering in 2011. Throughout his career, Casali served as a mentor and advisor for numerous undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral research associates, helping them develop successful careers in academia, industry, and the military. He advised, as chairman, 32 Master of Science and 25 Ph.D. students to graduation, with 10 of the Ph.D. students coming from, and returning, to the U.S. military. For 24 years, he wrote proposals and received funding for a United Parcel Service Doctoral Fellowship, totaling $1.09 million in funds and assisting over 20 Ph.D. students toward degree completion.

As an emeritus faculty, Casali will continue to serve as principal investigator on research projects at the university and also will continue to guide the engineering consulting company that he founded in 2013, Hearing, Ergonomics & Acoustics Resources LLC of Blacksburg. The company specializes in product design, expert witness legal services, and also has provided several large research subcontracts to Virginia Tech through its U.S. Department of Defense contracts.

Written by Anja Hemesath, a senior and a student writer for Virginia Tech Communications and Marketing

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