Events
Upcoming Events:
Our next webinar is this Friday. Arrive early to get your food and drinks, and come ready to ask questions about working in industry!
Here are the details:
Friday, April 19 from 12-1pm in Room 201B: Dr. Arathi Sethumadhavan (industry), Senior Human Factors Scientist at Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm and Disease Management
Arathi Sethumadhavan is a Senior Human Factors Scientist at Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm and Disease Management, where she conducts human factors research to aid the design of safe and usable medical devices, workflows, and systems. She received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology with a specialization in Human Factors from Texas Tech University. She has been the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s George E. Briggs Award for superior dissertation in the area of Engineering Psychology and the American Psychological Foundation’s graduate scholarship for research exhibiting excellence in scientific psychology. She currently serves HFES as the Department Editor of the Research Digest for Ergonomics in Design, the Quality Representative in the Technical Program Committee, and the Program Chair for the Health Care Technical Group. She has published articles in human factors and presented at numerous conferences.
Also, our summer trip to Austin and San Antonio... More details to come!
Past Events:
Webinar:
Our HFES student chapter's webinar series, " Careers in Human Factors Psychology" kicked off with Dr. Mark Scerbo as our first guest speaker. Dr. Scerbo talked to us about being an academic in the field of human factors and his research on healthcare simulation in human factors.
Webinar:
Online meeting for students hosted by the Western New York Chapter. The webinar gave students helpful professional information about starting a career with realistic expectations.
End of the semester HFES Student Chapter Social!
Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!
Webinar:
Our very own Dr. Jamie C. Gorman presented "Training Adaptive Teams: Enhancing Coordination Flexibility in Dynamic Environments" at: 12:00 noon - 1:30PM Central Time. The audio and slides are available on the HFES website.
TTU Alumni Annual Dinner at the HFES 2012 Conference:
We all had a fantastic time presenting, networking, accepting our Gold Status, and catching up with Alumni.
Guest Speaker from Valve: Dr. Mike Ambinder!
Dr. Mike Ambinder is an Experimental Psychologist currently working at Valve Corporation and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. His work is focused on user experience and HCI applied to video games. He as been part of the development of Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Alien Swarm, and Portal 2. He is one of the pioneers in applying psychophysiological techniques in user experience assessment and adaptive systems in the game industry context.
Engineering Fair
Students from the chapter went to the Texas Tech Engineering Fair. This fair is an opportunity to reach out to undergraduates and graduate students in the Engineering school. We were able to provide information about our chapter’s purpose and activities. This event is an annual event and we try to use it as an opportunity to spread awareness regarding our chapter.
Fall 2012 Semester Kick-off!
Main Event, Lubbock, TX.
SimLife Center
We visited the SimLife Center at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. This center has numerous health care environments for training purposes. For example, their center includes a simulated operating room, birthing unit, and intensive care unit. They also have numerous mannequin patients who have simulated vital signs. Nursing and medical students from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center use the SimLife Center to train for their careers. We were able to learn about many of the methods used in medical simulation. This spurred a discussion of the human factors issues surrounding simulation in general as well as this specific example. Nine chapter members were able to attend the tour.
Arbor Day
Student members attended Texas Tech’s Arbor Day activities. This allowed us to represent our chapter at a campus-wide event. Arbor Day is an important tradition at Texas Tech, which dates back to 1937. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to participate. This year, six students volunteered and we had a prominent spot beside the Administration building.
Texas Instruments
At Texas Instruments, we met with two employees who are involved in the ergonomics department there. First, they gave us an overview of what Texas Instruments does in general. They manufacture silicon chips for technology products. Second, we learned about ergonomics issues in the plant we visited and how the ergonomics team mitigated those issues. They dealt with issues ranging from office ergonomics to lower back pain from manual materials handling. Due to the automation of many of their processes, they talked about the need for more cognitive focused intervention.
Following this presentation by Texas Instruments staff, we took a tour of the clean room where the silicon chips are manufactured. The chapter members were amazed at the level of automation that has been implemented in the facility. Only one or two employees could be seen in a facility that spanned multiple football fields! A network of small robots performed many of the tasks. After looking at the clean room, we toured the control room where the automation was controlled. This was a wonderful opportunity to see some of the challenges of automation in a real world environment.
After the tour of the facilities, the chapter members presented a short presentation of their own research to the ergonomics staff. The Texas Instruments employees had wonderful insights and feedback on our research. This was a great opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss our research.
Raytheon
The chapter members were able to tour one of Raytheon’s weapon manufacturing plants. This tour focused on many of the safety issues surrounding metal machining. This process involves a high level of risk. The staff that gave us a tour of their facilities impressed upon us the importance of the sociotechnical factors surrounding safety. They discussed the importance of building a “safety culture” and to establish a close relationship with employees. They indicated that this is instrumental in fostering “buy-in”.
Furthermore, the staff showed us numerous procedures, tools, and systems that they have implemented to mitigate safety issues. For example, they implemented a “yellow brick road” protocol throughout their facility. This is a network of pathways demarcated with yellow lines. If an employee steps beyond the line, then they must be wearing safety goggles. This is extremely important given that there are numerous sharp pieces of metal in and around the machines. This tour of Raytheon’s facilities was a rare opportunity for us to see how human factors and ergonomics professionals work in a classified weapons manufacturing facility.
