Emily Whitcomb

Director, Work to Zero, National Safety Council

Emily Whitcomb

Director, Work to Zero, National Safety Council

Emily Whitcomb is the director of the Work to Zero initiative at the National Safety Council. Supported by a grant from the McElhattan Foundation, Work to Zero uses decades of insight, data and an unparalleled network of safety leaders to identify the most promising technological innovations for eliminating workplace deaths. In short, Work to Zero will serve as a hub of digital transformation in safety.

Emily joined NSC in 2014 as a research associate, conducting program evaluation for community, transportation and workplace injury prevention programs. She then became senior program manager and subject matter expert for the NSC fatigue initiative. She created the NSC Fatigue Cost Calculator, which makes the business case for organizations to address fatigue, and forged partnerships to expand resources, information and expertise for the program. Before coming to NSC, she served as prevention specialist at the Institute for Public Strategies in San Diego and was a research associate at Advance Health Solutions.

Emily has a master of public health from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds a double major from Northern Illinois University in both psychology and public health. Her research has been published in multiple peer review journals, including Accident Analysis and Prevention, the Journal of Safety Research and Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour.