Cognitive Systems Engineering

Dr. Michael McNeese is a Professor and Director of the MINDS Group (Multidisciplinary Initiatives in Naturalistic Decision Systems) at the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Dr. McNeese is also a Professor of Psychology (affiliated) in the Department of Psychology, and a Professor of Education (affiliated) in the Department of Learning Systems and Performance, at Penn State. Recently he stepped down as the Senior Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Studies, and Academic Affairs at the College of IST. Dr. McNeese also served as Department Head and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Programs in the College, and was part of the original ten founding professors in the College of IST. He has been the principal investigator and managed numerous research projects involving cognitive systems engineering, human factors, human-autonomous interaction, social-cognitive informatics, cognitive psychology, team cognition, user experience, situation awareness, and interactive modeling and simulations for more than 35 years. His research has been funded by diverse sources (NSF, ONR, ARL, ARO, AFRL, NGIA, Lockheed Martin) through a wide variety of program offices and initiatives. Prior to moving to Penn State in 2000, he was a Senior Scientist and Director of Collaborative Design Technology at the USAF Research Laboratory (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio) He was one of the principal scientists in the USAF responsible for cognitive systems engineering and team cognition as related to command and control and emergency operations. Dr. McNeese received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Vanderbilt University and an M.A. in Experimental-Cognitive Psychology from the University of Dayton, was a visiting professor at The Ohio State University, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering, and was a Research Associate at the Vanderbilt University Center for Learning Technology. He has over 250 publications in research/application domains including emergency crisis management; fighter pilot performance; pilot-vehicle interaction; battle management command, control, communication operations; cyber and information security; intelligence and image analyst work; geographical intelligence gathering, information fusion, police cognition, natural gas exploitation, emergency medicine; and aviation. His most recent work focuses on the cognitive science perspectives within cyber-security utilizing the interdisciplinary Living Laboratory Framework as articulated in this book.