News

Congratulations Isabella Predron, Connor Barnes, and Ashley Bailly on your publication “Accelerating Training Through Personalization in Augmented Reality” in the 14th Volume of Explorations!

The Explorations journal showcases cutting-edge, original, and student-driven scholarship by undergraduates pursuing intellectual and aesthetic experiences outside of the classroom. The undergraduate work chosen for publication highlights curiosity, innovation, and independence. Recently published articles have been from a wide range of academic fields and disciplines in the humanities, the STEM fields, and creative works.

You can read the latest volume here!

 

Check out this article featuring Oshin Tyagi and her recent recognition for her research efforts! Through the Dr. Milden J. Fox Jr. ’69 and Mary P. Fox ’73 Fellowship, Oshin was awarded for her active participation in the department and good academic standing!

Oshin also received a $10,000 grant from the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health Pilot Projects Research Training Program, funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The program supports novel research ideas by new faculty and senior graduate students planning a career in academia. Oshin will serve as the Principal Investigator for the research project to investigate the role of exoskeletons in reducing back injuries in occupations such as emergency response and health care.

Way to go Oshin Tyagi! Your leadership and dedication to your work make you a wonderful candidate for the fellowship and grant. Congratulations.

Click here to read more!

Congratulations to our first-year Ph.D. student, John Hayes, on receiving the Huffines Student Research Grant!

The Huffines Student Research Grant awards a graduate student financial support towards their research, education, and the institute’s mission statement. John has received the Huffines Student Research Grant through the Sydney and JL Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance to conduct a pilot study examining the impacts of cognitive fatigue on sensorimotor impairment under vestibular dysfunction, which could have significant implications for populations ranging from athletes to the elderly to astronauts.

Way to go, John Hayes!!! We look forward to what this opportunity brings and thank you Sydney and JL Huffines Institute for Sports Medicine and Human Performance for such an award.

“To be the bridge between scientists, practitioners, and the lay public in all aspects of sports medicine and human performance, with a particular focus on athletic performance.”

What a successful week at the HFES – Human Factors and Ergonomics Society International Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia! A variety of special sessions, from workshops to keynotes to panels, provided the opportunity to learn from thought leaders in the field of human factors and ergonomics and the industries we shape. Ranging from Human-Robot Interaction, Training, Occupational Ergonomics, Exoskeletons, and so much more – the NeuroErgo lab had the wonderful opportunity of sharing our research during Techincal Group Sessions and Poster presentations.

 

 

 

We also got to see our friend, Dr. Sarah Hopko! It was nice to catch up and hear about work-life and see what she had been up to! We look forward to seeing you again in the near future!

 

 

 

We started off the conference with a bang! Oshin Tyagi and Ranjana Mehta were awarded the Human Factors Prize for their contribution towards equity and inclusion at the Opening Award Ceremony. The study captured unique sex-specific causal brain dynamics associated with fatigue in older men and women! We are so thankful that HFES encourages and recognizes such efforts toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and fosters those commitments into the best practices in research. Oshin also was awarded the HFES student members with honors. Way to go!

The excitement did not slow down for day two – Aakash Yadav and Yinsu Zhang were awarded the HART Best Video in the Human–AI–Robot Teaming (HART) Technical Group. This work focuses on understanding the effect of trust in automation using a multi-modal brain-behavioral approach. The participants worked collaboratively with a UR10 robot to assemble planetary gear. Continuous measures of the brain (functional near-infrared spectroscopy), physiology (electrocardiography, eye-tracking, electrodermal activity), and behavior (videorecording) were used to understand the differences in trusting and distrusting conditions. You can watch the video here! Thank you to the HART Technical Group for the recognition and efforts for such activities!

Last but certainly not least, John Hayes was awarded the Best Student-Authored Paper Award in the Training Technical Group. His work focuses on identifying the early predictors of learning in VR-based drone training. Thank you to the Training Technical Group for the recognition. 

Many students had the opportunity to showcase their research through lectures and presentations in their Technical Groups and other various sessions. We had 11 lectures, 4 posters, and 1 panel. See below for their presentation topics!

Ranjana Mehta – Panel: Learning Environments with Augmentation and Robotics for Next-gen Emergency Responders (LEARNER) – Human-Centered Intelligent Training for Emergency Responders

Oshin Tyagi – OE3: “Sex Differences in Neuromuscular Fatigue Mechanisms in Older Adults” and HFES Best Paper Lectures- Special Session II: “Uncovering Neuromuscular Fatigue Difference in Older Women and Men: Shedding Light on Causal Brain Dynamics” and LBR105s1: Insights on “neck up” impacts of low back exoskeletons for patient handling tasks: Shedding light on the brain

Shivangi Dwivedi –  T3: “Comparing the efficacy of AR-based training with video-based training”

Aakash Yadav –  HART4: “Interplay of Cognitive Fatigue and Trust in Human-Robot Collaboration”

Yinsu Zhang – HART4: “Capturing Dynamic Trust Metrics during Shared Space Human-Robot Collaboration: An eye-tracking approach”

John Hayes – T3: “Identifying Early Predictors of Learning in VR-based Drone Training”

Tiash Rana Mukherjee and Yinsu Zhang also had the opportunity to showcase their work during the poster presentation session.

Tiash – “Neural, muscular and perceptual responses with Shoulder Exoskeleton use over days”

Yinsu – “Measurement and Analysis of Dynamic Trust in Automated Vehicles – Lessons Learned, Recommendations, and Pilot Results”

HFES held a poster session for Lab Posters. Lindsey Brenner was able to showcase the NeuroErgo Lab and how we examine the mind-motor-machine nexus to understand, quantify, and predict human state performance when interacting with emerging technologies in safety-critical extreme environments.

Lindsey Brenner, the lab project manager, was also elected as the Web Content Chair for HFE Woman (following Oshin Tyagi’s role).

All in all – HFES was an eventful conference. The NeuroErgonomics Lab is forever grateful for the opportunity to share research and learn from our colleagues in Human Factors and Ergonomics. Each year brings new opportunities, new connections, and new research questions. Congratulations to those who were recognized for their achievements and presented their work. See you next year in Washington DC!

Check out this news feature on the NeuroErgonomics Lab on #HumanAutonomyTeaming – Tracking Trust In Human-Robot Work Interactions.

“As industries begin to see humans working closely with robots, there’s a need to ensure the relationship is effective, smooth, and beneficial to humans. Robots have to be trustworthy and humans have to be willing to trust robots for this relationship to work. Dr. Ranjana Mehta (#TAMUisen) is focusing on understanding the brain-behavior relationships of why and how an operator’s trusting behaviors are influenced by both human and robot factors in her latest National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project on human-robot interactions in safety-critical work domains.”

An alumni graduate, Sarah Hopko, PhD, initiated this line of work in the lab, and our current students Aakash Yadav and Yinsu Zhang continue with the efforts.

Click HERE to read! (Article by: Jennifer Reiley)

A NeuroErgonomics Lab student-led paper by Oshin Tyagi won The Human Factors Prize this year at HFES Human Factors and Ergonomics Society! The paper addressed Equity and Inclusivity in human factors research by shedding light on causal brain dynamics as older women and men perform fatiguing work! This work also highlighted the utility of Neuroergonomics to uncover sex-specific strategies to preserve motor performance that existing ergonomic methods were unable to capture!

Oshin, we are so proud of you and can’t wait for more of such impactful work from you in the future!!

Our first lab meeting of the semester! The NeuroErgonomics lab is excited for the new academic year. Ft. A special guest! Thanks, Rohith for the surprise. It was so nice to see you and catch up!

The NeuroErgonomics Lab is collaborating with Dr. Roozbeh Jafari, Dr. Steven Riechman, Dr. Arul Jayaraman, and Dr. Heather Bean at Arizona State University, on a $4.8 million multidisciplinary project to study human breath and develop artificial intelligence algorithms to predict fatigued states

Fatigue research at the intersections of complex risk factors stemming from sleep deprivation, cognitive and physical overload, and their interplays, is critical to help develop guidelines and innovative solutions for effective monitoring and management of fatigue across various industry sectors. The NeuroErgonomics Lab has been working at these intersections for the past decade across lab and field settings, and we are excited to expand our knowledge base through this new venture with a very uniquely formed multidisciplinary team!!

Read more here. (Article by Justin Elizalde)

This week the NeuroErgonomics Laboratory attended the Neuroergonomics and NYC Neuromodulation Conference 2022! During this conference, we heard colleagues and fellow researchers in neuroergonomics and neuromodulation address the state-of-the-art neurotechnology for brain-body performance and health. This conference covered many areas of interest including Brain/Body Performance, Skill Acquisition, Stress and Fatigue, Pain, Addiction and Binge Eating, Cognition and Physical Recovery, Eye-tracking, Neuromarketing, and Remote/mobile sensing in the wild.

Each speaker and session brought valuable insight into the future of neurotechnology and we were excited to connect and share with everyone attending. Our team also had the wonderful opportunity of presenting our work during sessions, lightning talks, and abstract presentations at poster sessions.

Dr. Ranjana Mehta presenting “The eyes are windows into the brain: Sex parity for effective human-autonomy teaming” in the Social and Consumer Neuroergonomics session. She also organized the session: Promoting emerging scientists and diversity in Neurotech: A Discussion”  and was the diversity and accessibility chair for the conference.

Tiash Rana Mukherjee’s ⚡️lightning ⚡️ talk on “Neural, muscular, and perceptual responses with Shoulder Exoskeleton use over days.”

Oshin Tyagi’s⚡️lightning ⚡️ talk on “TMS applications to uncover central mechanisms of fatigue under stress”

John Hayes’⚡️lightning ⚡️ talk on “Brain Dynamics Associated with Psychomotor Training Using Augmented Reality”

Each member of our team also submitted abstracts of current projects and had the opportunity to present their work at poster sessions throughout the conference. You can find the pdf versions of the posters linked below.

John Hayes – BRAIN DYNAMICS ASSOCIATED WITH PSYCHOMOTOR TRAINING USING AUGMENTED REALITY 

Aakash – Neural Signatures of Trust in Human-Robot Collaboration: A Tale of Two Use-Cases

Oshin Tyagi – TMS applications to uncover central mechanisms of fatigue under stress

Yixin Zhang – Heart Rate Variability as a Biomarker for Working Memory Performance and Fatigue Perception

Shivangi Dwivedi and Isabella Pedron – Neurophysiological and Perceptual Evaluation of Adaptive Augmented Reality Based Training

Tiash Rana Mukherjee – Neural, Muscular, and Perceptual responses with Shoulder Exoskeleton use over days

Yinsu Zhang – Neural Signatures of Dynamic Trust in AVs

Two of our lab members, Oshin Tyagi and Aakash, were also awarded the Abbott Science and Society Award for Emerging Scientists! We are thankful for recourses and opportunities like the Abbott award that makes sharing our research and attending conferences like this possible! Way to go Oshin and Aakash!

Thanks for a wonderful event and thank you NYC for welcoming a part of Texas A&M University! Gig em’! 

John Kang and his team received the Outstanding Research Award at the 2022 Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering (KSIE) for their work “Multimodal and Longitudinal Fatigue Assessments on Offshore Platforms.” Way to go!