Representatives from the Wm Michael Barnes ’64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University celebrated success at the most recent Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) annual meeting, attended by more than 1,100 people.
Dr. Xudong Zhang, professor and chair of the Human Factors Prize Committee, said this was the first fully in-person annual meeting since the pandemic started.
Faculty and graduate students took part in 30 lectures, eight poster presentations and one panel. Dr. Farzan Sasangohar, associate professor, served as technical program chair for the conference.
“The department is proud of our faculty and will continue to support their presence at this flagship conference,” said Dr. Lewis Ntaimo, department head. “This year the department sponsored an information booth at the conference.”
Doctoral student Srihari Menon attended the meeting to present his research under faculty advisor Dr. Nancy Currie-Gregg on the injury outcomes of posture in astronauts.
“HFES was overall a good experience for me, I got to present my work to a diverse audience,” Menon said. “While there, I discovered a professional opportunity, I reconnected with two professors and networked with a lot of professionals new to the field.”
“We increased the visibility of the department at the conference,” said Dr. Ranjana Mehta, associate professor and member of the HFES executive council. “Everyone I talked to was in awe of our group and their collective breadth of research and excellence in our science.”
Awards received during the conference were presented to:
- John Hayes and Mehta, Best Student-Authored Paper, Training Technical Group
- Karim Zahed, Outstanding Student Member with Honors
- Farzaneh Shahini, Outstanding Student Member with Honors
- Oshin Tyagi, Outstanding Student Member with Honors
- Tyagi and Mehta, Human Factors Prize
- Aakash Yadav, Yinsu Zhang and Mehta, HART Best Video
Dr. Maryam Zahabi, assistant professor, said for human factors researchers, this conference is their flagship.
“It provides an excellent opportunity for the students to showcase their research and increase the department’s visibility,” Zahabi said.
“It was great to see all of the Texas A&M folks at the premier conference in our field,” said Dr. Thomas Ferris, associate professor. “I’m thrilled to see how we have grown in recent years into a very strong presence.”