ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech

I am super excited to share that the ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech, in collaboration with Siddhartha Bhattacharyya's ASSIST Research Lab at Florida Institute of Technology, has been selected for award of one of NASA's University Leadership Initiatives (ULI) focused on developing trustworthy autonomous agents for learning-enabled increasingly autonomous systems. We have a great multidisciplinary team including Amy Pritchett from Penn State, Sandip Ray from the University of Florida, Abdollah Homaifar from North Carolina A&T State University, Marco Pavone from Stanford, Cong Liu from Collin's Aerospace, Matthew Synborski from ResilienX, Melody Graveen, Ed.D. from Santa Fe Community College and Chris Fernando from Florida Tech. I can’t wait to get this research started!

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending?Vertical Flight Society Transformative Vertical Flight Conference?in Phoenix! It was fun presenting ATLAS Lab's research paper,?"Novel Human Factors Challenges, Unexpected Events, and Safety Hazards Associated with Operation of Battery-powered eVTOL Aircraft,"?and share insights with such a brilliant and passionate group. Huge thanks to everyone who attended my session, asked thought-provoking questions, and sparked great discussions. I met so many amazing people, and learned a ton! Already looking forward to the next one! Thanks to Ariel Louie and Colton Marchesseault, EIT, for session chairing, and all others involved for putting together a great experience for attendees! ?#VFS?#TransformativeVerticalFlight #eVTOL #HumanFactors #AviationInnovation

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending?Vertical Flight Society Transformative Vertical Flight Conference?in Phoenix! It was fun presenting ATLAS Lab's research paper,?"Novel Human Factors Challenges, Unexpected Events, and Safety Hazards Associated with Operation of Battery-powered eVTOL Aircraft,"?and share insights with such a brilliant and passionate group. Huge thanks to everyone who attended my session, asked thought-provoking questions, and sparked great discussions. I met so many amazing people, and learned a ton! Already looking forward to the next one! Thanks to Ariel Louie and Colton Marchesseault, EIT, for session chairing, and all others involved for putting together a great experience for attendees! ?#VFS?#TransformativeVerticalFlight #eVTOL #HumanFactors #AviationInnovation

Registration is open for the 2025 International Symposium on Aviation Psychology this May at Oregon state. I am super excited about the keynote speakers, which include legacy aviation human factors researcher, Kathleen Mosier, and Tom Prevot from Joby aviation, and the great line-up of panelists and paper presentations with focus areas ranging from human autonomy teaming to advanced air mobility, unmanned systems, neurophysiological assessment and beyond. I hope to see everyone there! #aviationresearch #humanfactors #AAM

ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech researcher and PhD candidate Kendall Carmody will be presenting our paper "Novel Human Factors Challenges, Unexpected Events, and Safety Hazards Associated with Operation of Battery-powered eVTOL Aircraft" at the Vertical Flight Society Transformative Vertical Flight Conference in Phoenix, AZ this week! For those attending, join Kendall on February 6th at 4:30 pm MST at the Phoenix Convention Center. #VFS #TVF2025 #eVTOL #HumanFactors #AviationSafety

It was a pleasure for the ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech to welcome Dr. John Z. Kiss, Florida Institute of Technology's Provost, and Dr. Hamid Kyan Sam RASSOUL, Florida Tech's Senior Associate Provost for Research, to the lab last week to share with them the exciting research we are doing and show them our cool toys (i.e., simulators). Thank you both for taking time out of your busy days! #aviationresearch #humanfactors

I am excited to share that ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech has been awarded a new project through the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) in which we will be developing, and validating with a simulation studying using Florida Tech pilots, a theoretical model of pilot expertise, including indicators that can be used to identify where pilots-in-training are on the expertise continuum and their associated training needs. It will be great to get to work with Beth Atkinson and Lee Sciarini again, as well as collaborate with Joseph R. Keebler, PhD from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Michael Curtis from Sonalysts, Inc., Camilla Knott and her team at TiER1 Performance, and Gita Sukthankar from the University of Central Florida. I'm also super stoked to be bringing one of my mentors onto the team, Donna Forsyth Wilt, as well as former ATLAS Lab member Warren Pittorie, PhD. to consult. I'm looking forward to tackling this research! #aviationtraining #aviationresearch

I am excited to share that ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech has been awarded a new project through the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) in which we will be developing, and validating with a simulation studying using Florida Tech pilots, a theoretical model of pilot expertise, including indicators that can be used to identify where pilots-in-training are on the expertise continuum and their associated training needs. It will be great to get to work with Beth Atkinson and Lee Sciarini again, as well as collaborate with Joseph R. Keebler, PhD from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Michael Curtis from Sonalysts, Inc., Camilla Knott and her team at TiER1 Performance, and Gita Sukthankar from the University of Central Florida. I'm also super stoked to be bringing one of my mentors onto the team, Donna Forsyth Wilt, as well as former ATLAS Lab member Warren Pittorie, PhD. to consult. I'm looking forward to tackling this research! #aviationtraining #aviationresearch

ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech closed out the semester with a bang! We celebrated with a Christmas party complete with Pomp and Circumstance and graduation cake, a white elephant gift exchange, a Florida Tech/Human Factors/Holiday-themed Jeopardy game, and we had emeritus lab members there to boot! Congratulations to Dr. Bhoomin B Chauhan, Ph.D., who I had the pleasure of hooding this semester and Isabella DeLoach who is taking flight from my lab to seek employment. I am so blessed to have such an amazing team! Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The ATLAS Lab at Florida Tech was in full effect again at IITSEC this year! Maureen Namukasa did a killer job presenting our work on the training implications associated with the Digital Divide, and I was absolutely honored to receive the 2024 NTSA Modeling & Simulation Award for Education and Human Performance. Thank you John Deaton for nominating me and TJ OConnor and Michael Simpson for your support of my nomination. It's always great to connect with old friends and to see the amazing work that ATLAS lab emeriti are doing in the industry. Keep an eye out for them, they are a growing breed! I look forward to seeing everyone next year!