Experience

Dr. Mitler has a distinguished career in the science of, and the legal ramifications arising from, human error mishaps. In academia, he served on the research and teaching faculties at Stanford University and was a Professor at Stony Brook University and The University of California, San Diego. Dr. Mitler has extensive experience with National Institutes of Health (NIH) research and served for ten years as a Program Director for the NIH in Bethesda, MD.

Understanding

Dr. Mitler has extensive experience having founded and operated sleep disorders centers at Stony Brook University and Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. In legal settings, Dr. Mitler has over 30 years of experience in the forensic examination of transportation and industrial mishaps and assessing whether fatigue was a significant contributing factor.

Studies have shown that the time it takes a person to fall asleep is a useful measure of fatigue. Humans are highly likely to fall asleep quickly between 12:00 midnight and 6:00 a.m. and also between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. - even when they were trying to stay awake. This pattern is a manifestation of innate biological needs. Round-the-clock operations that involve transportation, manufacturing and emergency services are especially vulnerable to human error mishaps in which operator fatigue may be alleged. The counts per hour of such accidents form a two-peak pattern that coincides with the pattern observed for sleep tendency.

Overview of Fatigue-related Accidents

What is a forensic examination?

Forensic examination is comprised of an orderly analysis, investigation, inquiry, test or inspection to obtain the truth. Almost every scientific or technical field has a forensic application which usually involves weighing the probability of competing explanations to provide an expert opinion. Dr. Mitler's forensic examinations are focused on cases in which it is alleged that fatigue and/or sleep disorders were contributory to a transportation or an industrial mishap.