Today we welcome Wendy Jephson. Wendy Jephson is the Founding CEO of LetsThink, a new start-up that produces domain-specific technology designed specifically to support complex analytic thinking. LetsThink specializes in engaged intelligence, enabling its clients to think brilliantly.

Dual qualified as a commercial lawyer and business psychologist with domain expertise in healthcare and financial services, this is Wendy's second start-up.  As Co-Founder of Sybenetix, Wendy was instrumental in the original vision, growth phase, and acquisition of her first company by Nasdaq.  

At Nasdaq she was Head of Research & Ideation and led a unique team of experts that combined behavioral science, financial domain knowledge, and advanced analytics to bring diverse thinking and cross-industry experience to designing and delivering technology to solve some of the biggest challenges facing financial services. 

Recognized as a leader in her field, Wendy regularly delivers keynotes around the world on topics as diverse as AI, Surveillance, Technology Design, Cognitive Engineering, Organisational Resilience, and Conduct and Culture.  

Wendy also previously served as a Board member for the Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, and Oslo Nasdaq Exchanges and currently acts as an Advisor to the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR) and Chairs the Advisory Board of the University College London’s Doctoral Research Programme, Ecobrain.

Learn more about Wendy’s work:

Wendy's LinkedIn

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date recorded: November 12, 2021

Show Description:

Today we welcome John Allspaw. John is an engineering leader and  researcher with over 20 years of experience in building and leading  teams engaged in software and systems engineering.

He is a co-founder of Adaptive Capacity Labs, LLC. Previously, he was  Chief Technology Officer at Etsy. He has also worked at Flickr,  Friendster, InfoWorld, Salon, Genentech, Volpe National Transportation  Center, and a bunch of other places as a consultant from time to time.

John has spent the last decade bridging insights from Human Factors,  Cognitive Systems Engineering, and Resilience Engineering to the domain  of software engineering and operations.

His publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning  (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps  Handbook.” His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per  Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement.

He holds a Master’s degree in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund University.

Where to find John:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 09/01/2021

Show Description:

Beth Lay’s expertise is in applying Resilience Engineering, High Reliability Organizations, and Safety II to Human Performance. She is currently guiding the transformation from traditional, behavior-based safety to “new view” Safety II as the Director of Safety and Human Performance for Lewis Tree. Beth has advised on resilience and human performance for NASA, the Department Of Energy, and Los Alamos National Labs. Beth is a mechanical engineer with a master’s certificate in cognitive science. Former roles include leading Siemens Energy Risk Management team and, more recently, Director of Human Performance at Calpine.

Where to find Beth:

Lewis Tree Service

Beth’s Team Bio

New View Safety Overview

Lewis Tree Blog

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 05/25/2021

Show Description:

Penny Sanderson is Professor of Cognitive Engineering and Human Factors at The University of Queensland, where she has appointments in the School of Psychology, School of Information Technology and  Electrical Engineering, and School of Clinical Medicine. She graduated with her BA (with Honors) from University of Western Australia and then completed her PhD at University of Toronto in Canada. She worked for 11 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before returning to her native Australia. In her research, Penny develops, tests and applies theories about the human role in complex sociotechnical systems. She has conducted research in healthcare, power systems, air defence, air traffic control, and emergency response. She has made important contributions to our understanding of the impact of workplace interruptions on work performance; the design of effective auditory interfaces in safety-critical systems; and the perceptual, cognitive, and social effects of wearable technologies. Penny is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the International Ergonomics Association.

Penny has received many awards including:

· The Distinguished International Colleague Award and the Paul M. Fitts Educator Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society include

· The Jerome H. Ely Best Paper Award (twice) in the journal Human Factors.

· The Franklin V Taylor Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology from the American Psychological Association.

Where to find Penny:

ResearchGate

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 04/16/2021

Show Description:

Bill is Founder, President, and CSE Fellow at Resilient Cognitive  Solutions. 

Bill’s military career includes an ROTC Commission in 1977  from Carnegie-Mellon University as a Distinguished Military Graduate,  with further military education including Airborne, Ranger, Military  Intelligence Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, CAS3, and Command and  General Staff College. He has held leadership positions up to  MI Battalion Command, Brigade S3, as well as Intelligence Staff Officer  Positions at various levels up to Joint Command, receiving numerous decorations and awards including the Meritorious Service Medal.  His military career spanned 27 years of active and reserve service, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel, Military Intelligence in  2004.  

Bill’s civilian career began as a Cognitive Systems Engineer designing Advanced Control Rooms for commercial nuclear power plants,  including an alarm management system that still defines the state of the art. He is one of the longest practicing Cognitive Systems  Engineers, combining over 34 years of applied CSE experience in domains ranging from process control to national intelligence. Currently, he is focused on Advanced Decision Support using Big Data Analytics to team effectively with corresponding advances in decision-making tradecraft.

Where to find Bill:

ResearchGate

LinkedIn

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 04/08/2021

Show Description:

Mary "Missy" Cummings received her B.S. in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy in 1988, her M.S. in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994, and her Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2004.

A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, she was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots.

Where to find Missy:

Duke Pratt School of Engineering

Twitter: @missy_cummings

LinkedIn

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 3/18/2021

Show Description:

Cindy is a Principal Cognitive Engineer and Capability Lead for Human Machine Teaming (HMT) at MITRE in Bedford, MA where she works to normalize the use of systems engineering processes that create effective partnerships between people and technology. She strives to build a strong community of MITRE Human Machine Teaming practitioners. 

Before coming to MITREin 2014, she led numerous studies of applied cognitive work in the Air Force and for industry. She has conducted applied research in settings that include command and control from tactical to strategic, submarine operations, intelligence analysis, and healthcare. Recent work in collaboration with design professionals has emphasized combining cognitive engineering and design thinking methods. She earned a Ph.D. from Wright State University in 1997; her dissertation topic was decision making in laparoscopic surgery. With an undergraduate degree in Behavioral Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, she served as an Air Force officer in behavioral science and acquisition roles for 20 years, retiring in 2004 as a Lieutenant Colonel. 

She served on the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board from 2011-2015.

Learn more about Cindy’s work:

Human-Machine Teaming Systems Engineering Guide

Cognitive Engineering Toolkit

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Date: 3/9/2021

Show Description:

Dr. Mosier is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology from San Francisco  State University and the Founder and Principal Scientist of TeamScape  LLC, a company founded to conduct research on teams in  work environments. She is the President of the International  Ergonomics Association (IEA), the federation of ergonomics and human  factors societies around the world.  

The mission of the IEA is to  elaborate and advance ergonomics science and practice, and to expand  its scope of application and contribution to society to improve the  quality of life, working closely with its constituent societies and  related international organizations.

Learn more about Kathleen’s work:

Berkeley Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces

Kathleen's LinkedIn

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Timestamps:

How Kathleen transitioned from being a high school humanities teacher to an NDM researcher [2:02]

Kathleen’s experience in pursuing research at San Francisco State University [05:21]

Founding TeamScape, LLC [6:23]

Challenges acquiring government clients as an NDM researcher [7:34]

Kathleen’s current project with NASA researching teams in space [14:47]

Cultural nuances of interactions on NASA crews operating in different countries [20:40]

“Which research project has been most rewarding for you?” [22:10]

What kind of automation systems planes were using in the 1990’s [24:01]

Kathleen’s early NDM influences [28:04]

Changes witnessed in the NDM community over time [29:50]

Date: 12/10/2020

Show Description:

Lia DiBello is president and director of research at WTRI, Inc. She received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at CUNY Graduate School in New York, where she studied under the late Distinguished Professor Sylvia Scribner, a well known pioneer in the area of workplace cognitive and the author of many now classic works.

Since she started directing the research at WTRI, Dr. DiBello has been the recipient of 17 basic research funding awards from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and The Russell Sage Foundation. DiBello is best known for the development of a particular kind of activity-based “strategic rehearsal” approach that has been shown to greatly accelerate learning through cognitive reorganization.

Where to find Leah:

LinkedIn

WTRI

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Timestamps:

How Leah first became involved in NDM [1:50]

Leah’s methods for developing new methods [9:45]

Strategies for measuring the impact of a training to know if it’s working [18:45]

Leading a financial services firm to new a new profitable approach [32:15]

Capturing mental models prior to training [32:57]

Advantages of using virtual worlds to achieve NDM goals [36:08]

Career influences in and outside the NDM community [44:00]

One single question that could determine whether someone truly practices NDM [45:49]

Where Leah plans to take her research next [46:29]

Two truths and a lie [52:19]

Date: 02/11/2021

Show Description:

Shawn received a PhD and MA in Cognitive/Experimental Psychology from Ohio State University, with specializations in cognitive engineering, quantitative psychology, and psycholinguistics. He previously received a BA in Psychology/Music from Binghamton University (SUNY). He is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the American Psychological Association, the National Defense Industrial Association, and the Cognitive Science Society.

Where to find Shawn:

Aptima Human Centered Engineering

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Timestamps:

Describing Aptima and how it connects to the NDM community [1:28]

How human centeredness is expressed in Aptima’s core domains [6:17]

Shawn’s experience transitioning from research to a more executive role [11:00]

Staying true to core principles when working with a multidisciplinary team [19:04]

Pushback when making the case for NDM methods [26:17]

Biggest influences on Shawn’s career [31:30]

Future research priorities for Aptima [38:11]

How to decide whether to file a patent and what that process is like [42:18]

One question to determine if someone is a human centered practitioner [46:52]

Some things that not many people know about Shawn [49:58]