Led multiple teams of designers and developers in securing 2M+ NIH-funded projects, pioneering AI-enhanced Virtual Reality for HAZWOPER training.Spearheaded efforts for the development of social and assistive robotic systems that would assist the elderly and disabled in performing activities of daily living; reducing healthcare costs and improving their overall quality of life.Directed a $225k Air Force SBIR comprised of a team of designers and developers, an intelligent training platform that transcends hardware limitations, enhancing user access to diverse mediums.Successfully managed concurrent tasks for 5 projects, ensuring on-time feedback and positive client feedback.Fostered collaboration between designers, developed prototypes, and orchestrated product demonstrations.

Led a multi-company project, developing an extended reality framework for human operators to collaboratively work with increasingly autonomous unmanned air systems leading to $2M+ in additional funding.Co-led $1.5M NASA project, pioneering conversation analysis for measuring trust in virtual and robotic assistants. Spearheaded multimillion-dollar projects, leveraging interactive machine learning for collaborative mission planning leading to additional contracts from NASA. Developed and evaluated a $1M+ mixed-reality environment for training firefighters, highlighting similar physiological responses to a burn building.

Directed research portfolio focused on enhancing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and reducing human errors in complex systems.Provided subject matter expertise in human factors, conducting in-depth task analysis, usability studies, and human error analysis, driving advancements in the commercial crew program.Evaluated project progress and outcomes for NASA Human Exploration Research Opportunities (HERO), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), mitigating risks through strategic assessment.Identified and organized the development of multimillion-dollar research proposals, fostering continuous innovation and addressing the challenges associated with HCI.

Secured $1M+ in funding from NASA and the Air Force, addressing usability research challenges for large complex datasets.Led multidisciplinary projects with teams of 2-8 in designing and prototyping virtual reality, human-computer interaction, and robotics leading to updates to Human-Computer Interaction standards and guidelines.Created and presented reports, project reviews, and other status updates to customers.

• Principal Investigator for the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) funded Trust through Explanation Robotics research project: Primarily responsible for software design, experiment design, data collection and analysis and report generation for a study that explores how the amount and type of information a robot provides as an explanation affects a human operator’s trust.• Co-Investigator for the Semi-Autonomous Flight Environment Tug (SAFETug) project: Primarily responsible for the design, development and evaluation of the Human Machine Interface. Includes combining Ecological Interface Design with User Centered Design Processes to allow Air Traffic Controller the ability to monitor and issue route information to semi-autonomous tugs, which will be used to tow aircraft from gate to runway and vice versa. • Co-Investigator for the Human-Robot Interaction Research Project: Primarily responsible for performing experimental design, data collection, statistical analysis and report writing for studies focused on tele-operation, tele-manipulation and multimodal interaction.

• Usability Lead for ONR SBIR project Smart Interactive Devices: Produced the usability study design document, including the type of studies to be performed, which metrics to capture and how to capture those metrics. Proctored the usability evaluation and performed data analysis of the results.• Human Machine Interface Lead for DARPA Robotic Challenge competition project TROOPER: Designed the User Interface including novel interaction techniques between human operator and the robot. Designed and proctored the formative evaluations utilized to determine potential usability concerns.• Principal Investigator for Sociable Human Robot Interaction: Managing Perceptions, IR&D: Designed a research study to explore the minimal number of behaviors a robot can perform to convey meaning to a co-located human operator. Produced a test plan that utilizes crowd sourcing to evaluate sets of atomic behaviors.• Principal Investigator for Augmented Robot Operator Situational Awareness, IR&D: Designed and developed a system that addressed the soda straw effect common in robot tele-operation by creating exocentric (3rd person point of view) views from egocentric (1st person point of view) data. Produced a proprietary algorithm that utilized information from the operator and the egocentric data to create the best possible exocentric view. • Co-Principal Investigator for Actionable Shared Situational Awareness, IR&D; Performed research into how the human’s sematic representation of the world can be combined with a robots mathematical representation. Designed and developed a multi-level world model that translated between human semantics and robot mathematics.• ONR Supervision of UxV Mission Management by Interactive Teams: Designed and developed the User Interface features. Proctored usability studies performed with naval personnel.

Research on Automatic Speech Recognition and Context Awareness for robotic systems