MS Human Factors, NASA Grant

NASA Awards Grant to Human Factors Program

Summary of NASA Award

Center for the Human Factors in Advanced Aeronautics Technologies (CHAAT)
Tom Strybel PI, Kim Vu Co-I

This new center is made possible by a five-year, $5-m grant from NASA for the establishment of a Group 5 University Research Center in Human Factors.  CHAAT at CSULB will contribute to the evaluation and design of air traffic management concepts and technologies necessary to achieve the goals of Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen).  More importantly, CHAAT will advance and expand NextGen-relevant human factors’ and STEM training to students from underrepresented groups.

We will ensure the competency of human factors professionals by providing new opportunities for graduate training (approximately 10 graduate students will be supported each year), and publicizing these opportunities through outreach efforts. We will develop air-traffic-management-related human factors courses offered at CSULB, and offer these courses to a wider range of students. We will provide opportunities for student participation in human factors research, and develop student internships at NASA, other universities, and industries to allow students to apply skills and core competencies in real world settings.

Introducing new NextGen concepts and technologies will significantly impact performance of human operators. Successful implementation of these solutions for achieving JPDO goals demands require that we identify the information required of each new operator role, and assess the impact of these changes on operator performance. Research in CHAAT will validate existing performance measures in NextGen and develop new metrics that are sensitive to the changes in operator performance brought about by NextGen innovations.

We will partner with the Flight-Deck-Display-Research-Laboratory at NASA-ARC. Our collaborations will use human-in-the-loop simulations to evaluate ATM concepts and to validate operator performance metrics.

These collaborations will greatly leverage our current efforts in education, lab supervision, and internship development. The URC will allow us to create a nationally recognized center for human factors in advanced aeronautic technologies and for the training of students in human factors, engineering, and related fields. Consequently, the center will be a gateway for diverse student populations to enter aerospace organizations.