

Naturalistic Decision Making
Brian Moon and Laura Militello
Brian Moon and Laura Militello interview leading NDM researchers who study and support people who make decisions under stress.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 1, 2022 • 48min
#38: Safety and Human Factors in Healthcare with Terry Fairbanks of MedStar Health
Rollin J. “Terry” Fairbanks, MD, MS, is the Vice President Quality and Safety at MedStar Health, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University, and Founding Director of the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare. A board-certified emergency physician, he practices in the MedStar Washington Hospital Center emergency department. Dr. Fairbanks also holds an academic appointment as adjunct associate professor of Industrial Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo. He earned a bachelors degree in mathematics and physics and a masters degree in industrial systems engineering/human factors engineering, and after medical school he completed specialty training in emergency medicine, the HRET/NPSF Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship, and Wharton’s Physician Leadership Certificate Program at MedStar Health.
Trained in safety science prior to entering the medical field, Dr. Fairbanks is also a former paramedic, EMS medical director, and general aviation pilot, he is known for inspiring people to think differently about healthcare’s approach to quality, safety, and risk. As a member of the MedStar Health Leadership Team, he is responsible for system-wide quality and safety.
Dr. Fairbanks has contributed more than 120 publications to the healthcare quality and safety, human factors engineering and medical literature, and co-edited a book on cognitive systems engineering in healthcare. Dr. Fairbanks has served in many national and international roles, including the National Patient Safety Foundation Board of Advisors, the POLITICO Health IT Advisory Forum, AHRQ Patient Safety Network Technical Expert Advisory Panel, and he is a Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) Senior Fellow. He has served in advisory roles for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Pew Charitable Trusts, the American Medical Association, and has held formal consultative roles with the US, Australian, British, and Spanish governments. In 2017, he was listed by Becker’s Hospital Review in Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety.
View Dr. Fairbanks' publications on PubMed
View Dr. Fairbanks’ Complete Bibliography
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find the hosts:
Brian Moon
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura Militello
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Jun 7, 2022 • 26min
Episode #37: Exploring NDM's History, Contributions, and Future with Dr. Gary Klein
This episode contains a keynote delivered by Gary Klein at the NDM Association's 2022 virtual Open House.
Dr. Klein pioneered the Naturalistic Decision Making movement in 1989.
He is well-known for his work in advancing a number of decision-making tools, methods, and cognitive models. These include the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model, the Data/Frame model of sensemaking, the PreMortem method of risk assessment, techniques for Cognitive Task Analysis, and the ShadowBox training approach.
Klein is also the best-selling author of Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, and four other books plus three co-edited volumes. His newest book, Snapshots of the Mind, is scheduled for publication in October.
Learn more and register for the 2022 NDM conference at naturalisticdecisionmaking.org.

Feb 16, 2022 • 53min
Episode #36: Interview with Wendy Jephson
Today we welcome Wendy Jephson. Wendy Jephson is the Founding CEO of LetsThink, a new start-up that produces domain-specific technology designed specifically to support complex analytic thinking. LetsThink specializes in engaged intelligence, enabling its clients to think brilliantly.
Dual qualified as a commercial lawyer and business psychologist with domain expertise in healthcare and financial services, this is Wendy's second start-up. As Co-Founder of Sybenetix, Wendy was instrumental in the original vision, growth phase, and acquisition of her first company by Nasdaq.
At Nasdaq she was Head of Research & Ideation and led a unique team of experts that combined behavioral science, financial domain knowledge, and advanced analytics to bring diverse thinking and cross-industry experience to designing and delivering technology to solve some of the biggest challenges facing financial services.
Recognized as a leader in her field, Wendy regularly delivers keynotes around the world on topics as diverse as AI, Surveillance, Technology Design, Cognitive Engineering, Organisational Resilience, and Conduct and Culture.
Wendy also previously served as a Board member for the Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, and Oslo Nasdaq Exchanges and currently acts as an Advisor to the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR) and Chairs the Advisory Board of the University College London’s Doctoral Research Programme, Ecobrain.
Learn more about Wendy’s work:
Wendy's LinkedIn
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Nov 20, 2021 • 45min
Episode #35: Interview with John Allspaw
Date recorded: November 12, 2021
Show Description:
Today we welcome John Allspaw. John is an engineering leader and researcher with over 20 years of experience in building and leading teams engaged in software and systems engineering.
He is a co-founder of Adaptive Capacity Labs, LLC. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer at Etsy. He has also worked at Flickr, Friendster, InfoWorld, Salon, Genentech, Volpe National Transportation Center, and a bunch of other places as a consultant from time to time.
John has spent the last decade bridging insights from Human Factors, Cognitive Systems Engineering, and Resilience Engineering to the domain of software engineering and operations.
His publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps Handbook.” His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement.
He holds a Master’s degree in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund University.
Where to find John:
LinkedIn
Twitter
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Sep 1, 2021 • 40min
Episode #34: Interview with Beth Lay
Date: 09/01/2021
Show Description:
Beth Lay’s expertise is in applying Resilience Engineering, High Reliability Organizations, and Safety II to Human Performance. She is currently guiding the transformation from traditional, behavior-based safety to “new view” Safety II as the Director of Safety and Human Performance for Lewis Tree. Beth has advised on resilience and human performance for NASA, the Department Of Energy, and Los Alamos National Labs. Beth is a mechanical engineer with a master’s certificate in cognitive science. Former roles include leading Siemens Energy Risk Management team and, more recently, Director of Human Performance at Calpine.
Where to find Beth:
Lewis Tree Service
Beth’s Team Bio
New View Safety Overview
Lewis Tree Blog
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

May 25, 2021 • 51min
Episode #33: Interview with Penny Sanderson
Date: 05/25/2021
Show Description:
Penny Sanderson is Professor of Cognitive Engineering and Human Factors at The University of Queensland, where she has appointments in the School of Psychology, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, and School of Clinical Medicine. She graduated with her BA (with Honors) from University of Western Australia and then completed her PhD at University of Toronto in Canada. She worked for 11 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before returning to her native Australia. In her research, Penny develops, tests and applies theories about the human role in complex sociotechnical systems. She has conducted research in healthcare, power systems, air defence, air traffic control, and emergency response. She has made important contributions to our understanding of the impact of workplace interruptions on work performance; the design of effective auditory interfaces in safety-critical systems; and the perceptual, cognitive, and social effects of wearable technologies. Penny is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the International Ergonomics Association.
Penny has received many awards including:
· The Distinguished International Colleague Award and the Paul M. Fitts Educator Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society include
· The Jerome H. Ely Best Paper Award (twice) in the journal Human Factors.
· The Franklin V Taylor Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology from the American Psychological Association.
Where to find Penny:
ResearchGate
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Apr 16, 2021 • 43min
Episode #32: Interview with Bill Elm
Date: 04/16/2021
Show Description:
Bill is Founder, President, and CSE Fellow at Resilient Cognitive Solutions.
Bill’s military career includes an ROTC Commission in 1977 from Carnegie-Mellon University as a Distinguished Military Graduate, with further military education including Airborne, Ranger, Military Intelligence Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, CAS3, and Command and General Staff College. He has held leadership positions up to MI Battalion Command, Brigade S3, as well as Intelligence Staff Officer Positions at various levels up to Joint Command, receiving numerous decorations and awards including the Meritorious Service Medal. His military career spanned 27 years of active and reserve service, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel, Military Intelligence in 2004.
Bill’s civilian career began as a Cognitive Systems Engineer designing Advanced Control Rooms for commercial nuclear power plants, including an alarm management system that still defines the state of the art. He is one of the longest practicing Cognitive Systems Engineers, combining over 34 years of applied CSE experience in domains ranging from process control to national intelligence. Currently, he is focused on Advanced Decision Support using Big Data Analytics to team effectively with corresponding advances in decision-making tradecraft.
Where to find Bill:
ResearchGate
LinkedIn
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Apr 15, 2021 • 58min
Episode #31: Interview with Missy Cummings
Date: 04/08/2021
Show Description:
Mary "Missy" Cummings received her B.S. in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy in 1988, her M.S. in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994, and her Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2004.
A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, she was one of the Navy's first female fighter pilots.
Cummings is currently a Professor at the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering, the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences, and is the director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory and Duke Robotics. Her research interests include human-unmanned vehicle interaction, human-autonomous system collaboration, human-systems engineering, public policy implications of unmanned vehicles, and the ethical and social impact of technology.
Where to find Missy:
Duke Pratt School of Engineering
Twitter: @missy_cummings
LinkedIn
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Apr 12, 2021 • 47min
Episode #30: Interview with Cindy Dominguez
Date: 3/18/2021
Show Description:
Cindy is a Principal Cognitive Engineer and Capability Lead for Human Machine Teaming (HMT) at MITRE in Bedford, MA where she works to normalize the use of systems engineering processes that create effective partnerships between people and technology. She strives to build a strong community of MITRE Human Machine Teaming practitioners.
Before coming to MITREin 2014, she led numerous studies of applied cognitive work in the Air Force and for industry. She has conducted applied research in settings that include command and control from tactical to strategic, submarine operations, intelligence analysis, and healthcare. Recent work in collaboration with design professionals has emphasized combining cognitive engineering and design thinking methods. She earned a Ph.D. from Wright State University in 1997; her dissertation topic was decision making in laparoscopic surgery. With an undergraduate degree in Behavioral Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, she served as an Air Force officer in behavioral science and acquisition roles for 20 years, retiring in 2004 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
She served on the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board from 2011-2015.
Learn more about Cindy’s work:
Human-Machine Teaming Systems Engineering Guide
Cognitive Engineering Toolkit
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter

Mar 19, 2021 • 39min
Episode #29: Interview with Kathleen Mosier
Date: 3/9/2021
Show Description:
Dr. Mosier is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology from San Francisco State University and the Founder and Principal Scientist of TeamScape LLC, a company founded to conduct research on teams in work environments. She is the President of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), the federation of ergonomics and human factors societies around the world.
The mission of the IEA is to elaborate and advance ergonomics science and practice, and to expand its scope of application and contribution to society to improve the quality of life, working closely with its constituent societies and related international organizations.
Learn more about Kathleen’s work:
Berkeley Interdisciplinary Center for Healthy Workplaces
Kathleen's LinkedIn
Learn more about NDM:
NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org
Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making
Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:
Brian’s website
Brian’s LinkedIn
Brian’s Twitter
Laura’s website
Laura’s LinkedIn
Laura’s Twitter
Timestamps:
How Kathleen transitioned from being a high school humanities teacher to an NDM researcher [2:02]
Kathleen’s experience in pursuing research at San Francisco State University [05:21]
Founding TeamScape, LLC [6:23]
Challenges acquiring government clients as an NDM researcher [7:34]
Kathleen’s current project with NASA researching teams in space [14:47]
Cultural nuances of interactions on NASA crews operating in different countries [20:40]
“Which research project has been most rewarding for you?” [22:10]
What kind of automation systems planes were using in the 1990’s [24:01]
Kathleen’s early NDM influences [28:04]
Changes witnessed in the NDM community over time [29:50]


