Carole Tafforin
Carole Tafforin has a physiological background. She is today Scientific Director, ETHOSPACE, Toulouse, France. ETHOSPACE is a research and study group specialized in space and human ethology. She opened the innovative field of space ethology research 25 years ago. She has applied this Science of Behavior in a large panel of real, simulated and experimental situations, for a better knowledge of the astronaut’s adaptation from the selections, the trainings to the orbital missions. The method used is a non-invasive approach based on observation, description and quantification of the spontaneous motor activity at the individual level and the social level. In Life Sciences, it is actually a linkage between medicine & physiology on one side and psychology & psychiatry on the other side, and sociology & anthropology on a new way. Her accomplishments include 15 ethological research projects (funded by CNES, ESA, IPEV and others) conducted in Europe (France, Germany, Norway), in the Arctic and Antarctic in space-simulation environments (e.g., bedrest, EVA simulations, parabolic flight, confinement chambers, polar winter-over, and recently in Russia and in China. With international expertise and reviewing activities, she contributes to fundamental researches on human behavior and applications on human factors as a whole.