Month: November 2012

Chadde Conducts Family Engineering Night for Hispanic Students

Uziel Mendez and StudentsCoordinator Joan Chadde (Educational Programs) and the Michigan Tech Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (Uzi Mendez, Michael Briseno, Gilbert Ramirez and Armando Flores) along with Tech student volunteers Jess Hammersley, Margaret Brunette, Tyana Bogicevic and Sukaina Miftah, conducted a Family Engineering Night for 300+ Hispanic students and their parents at the Harrison Park K-8 School in Grand Rapids, Nov. 19.

From Tech Today.

Paul Ward Lectures in Florida

Paul WardAssociate Professor Paul Ward (CLS) gave two lectures in Tampa, Fla. Ward presented “Is Less Always More? Skilled Situation Assessment, Perceptual Anticipation and Decision Making in Complex Environments” at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of South Florida and “Perceptual-cognitive Skill in Sport: Implications for Performance and Training in Complex Domains” at the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, University of South Florida.

From Tech Today.

Myounghoon Jeon Joins CLS

Myounghoon LeonMyounghoon Jeon, PhD

Myounghoon Jeon joins the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences as assistant professor. He comes to Michigan Tech from Georgia Tech.

Jeon holds a PhD and an MS in Engineering Psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology. He also received an MS in Cognitive Science and a BA in Psychology from Yonsei University.

Jeon has published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, The Korean Journal of the Science of Emotion and Sensibility and ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing.

From Tech Today.

Chadde Presents Family Engineering at SWE

Family EngineeringEducation Program Coordinator Joan Chadde attended the 2012 Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Conference in Houston. Chadde co-presented “Get ‘Em While They’re Young with Family Engineering” with chemical engineering major Kerstin Cleveland, as well at the SWE Outreach Expo and the Invent It. Build It! session for middle school girls and parents to promote the Family Engineering program.

From Tech Today.

CLS Hosts Kelly Steelman

The Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences will host Kelly Steelman from 11:05 to 11:55 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 14, in Rekhi G06. Steelman will provide a research presentation, “Modeling Attention in Complex Workspaces.”

Steelman holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign along with an MS in Human Factors from the University of Illinois and a MS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher conducting research on human factors and applied cognition at Flinders University in South Australia. Her research interests include: basic and applied attention, models of attention, human performance in aviation, instructional design and display design.

From Tech Today.

For more information, contact Associate Professor Susan Amato-Henderson at slamato@mtu.edu .

Human Interface Design Enterprise and World Usability Day

World Usability Day 2012Thursday was Usability Day around the world, and this was the fifth year Michigan Tech was involved. The event celebrates usability, when technologies or procedures make sense to us and when we can learn–and remember–how to use them, make few errors and feel satisfied with our experiences.

The Human Interface Design Enterprise was showing off their driver simulator in Rekhi Hall.

It was one of a couple of major projects the group has taken on, according to Margo Woller-Carter, a PhD student in applied cognitive science and human factors.

“We are using a Uconnect system from Chrysler to test for driver distraction,” she said. “We designed this driver simulator to use with it, and we will also be doing some eye-tracking for them.” Uconnect was a multimedia system on steroids: entertainment, phone, navigation, voice command, controls, and wifi: perfect for testing for distractions. The Enterprise was in the second year of a three-year contract with Chrysler.

Read more at Tech Today, by Dennis Walikainen.