The New England Chapter (NEC) hosted its fourth annual Student Research Conference on November 9, 2007. The conference venue was The Riverside Conference Center in Cambridge, MA, and the conference drew student presenters from many of the surrounding universities including the University of New Hampshire, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Northeastern University, MIT and Bentley College. The conference was made possible through the generous sponsorship of Aptima Inc., Charles River Analytics, Inc., CellExchange Federal, Inc., and the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety. Their sponsorship allowed us to keep the conference free for students.
The conference was multifaceted and consisted of the following seven features: 17 research presentations made by human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) students from the above five universities; three student awards for best presentation; an inspiring keynote address by Dr. Dick Pew, former HFES President; short talks by our sponsors on applications of HF research to their companies; exhibits and kiosks by the sponsors that demonstrated the impact and use of HF/E at their companies, recruitment of students for several employment positions, and a catered breakfast and lunch to maximize the time for students and professional attendees to meet and network.
Student Award Winners
The students above won the awards. These were Alicia Kurowski (Aptima award), Allan Fong (CellExchange award), and Alexander Shyrokov (Charles River Analytics award).
Many thanks are due to the volunteers who helped make the conference possible, including the members of the Tufts University Student Chapter of the HFES, Dick Pew, and the board of the NEC, especially its President, Laurie Brykman. The conference is a big undertaking for the volunteers, but we think it provides a great forum and meeting place for HF/E students and professionals in the region.
With less than a week to go until the upcoming 2007 NECHFES Student Conference, we are excited with the submissions we have received.
Seventeen (17) students will be presenting their research on Friday, November 09. The following is the list of papers. These are organized by topic, but not necessarily by order of presentation.
Potpourri:
"A Human Factors Study of Operating Room Accidents Involving the Misplacement and Retention of Foreign Objects" (MIT)
"Personal Task Manager – A Working Memory Tool for Task Resumption" (Bentley College)
"An Empathetic Agent that Responds to Human Emotion " (Northeastern University)
"Development of a Marine Navigation System for First Responders" (University of New Hampshire)
Driving Performance:
"Comparison of Novice and Experienced Drivers’ Performance" (Northeastern University)
"Investigating Frustration Influence on Driving Performance" (University of New Hampshire)
"Detecting Driving Style with Physiological and Performance Data" (Northeastern University)
"Effects of Different Push-To-Talk Solutions on Driving Performance" (University of New Hampshire)
Tool Development:
"Adaptive GMM-SVM Based Face Expression Recognition in Real-Time Video" (Northeastern University)
"Designing for Intelligent, Predictive, Adaptive Text Input on Mobile Handsets" (Bentley College)
"Research in Multi-Thread Spoken Dialogs in Hands-Busy and Eyes-Busy Environments" (University of New Hampshire)
"Changes in Manual Lifting Among Nursing Assistants After the Introduction of a No-Lift Program in Nursing Homes" (UMass Lowell)
Transportation Research:
"Effects of Music and Temperature on Driver Performance and Heart Rate" (Northeastern University)
"Human Computer Interaction while Driving" (University of New Hampshire)
"Graphical and Speech User Interfaces for In-Car Navigation" (University of New Hampshire)
"A Study on Driver Drowsiness Detection Using EEG" (Northeastern University)
"Distinguish Bad Traffic Signs Through Analyzing Driver’s Visual Behavior and Psychophysiological Response" (Northeastern University)
Richard W. Pew Ph.D, who will give a talk entitled "Confessions of an Aging Eclectic Human Factors Specialist."
Abstract: When I was studying Electrical Engineering I thought all I would be doing is designing circuits the rest of my life since that is what I was learning how to do. Many of you may think that you have to do human Factors research the
rest of your life because that is what you are learning how to do. I'm here to say it is not true. I am admittedly rather a maverick, but I will describe a career that has included a range of projects that include study of nuclear power plants, social security computer systems, automotive braking systems, digital music synthesizers -- even serving as an expert
witness (for the plaintiff) on a case that was described in Omni Magazine as, "Death by Robot."
The Riverside Conference Center, One Main St., Cambridge, MA
(at Kendall Square T Station)
Map: You can take the T and get off at the Kendall Station (red line) and follow Main St. to the building or you can drive and park your car (yellow circle is the parking entrance). Follow the red line on the map to get to the meeting room.
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