ISyE students shine at ASPIRE 2025

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering was well-represented at ASPIRE, the annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, held Oct. 13–17 in Chicago.

Students at all academic levels received multiple honors and awards, highlighting the department’s continued excellence and impact in the field.

Leading the way was the department’s HFES student chapter, which was awarded gold status for the exemplary work over the last year.

In addition, the following individual students received special honors/recognition:

• PhD candidate Soo Yeon Kim (advised by Emerson Electric Quality & Productivity Professor John Lee) was one of three finalists for the prestigious Alphonse Chapanis Award for her outstanding research in the field of human factors.
• PhD candidate Patrick Fuller (advised by Assistant Professor Jackie Cha) was named an HFES student member with honors. 
• PhD candidate Jeevan Jayasuriya, in collaboration with undergraduate student Adam Easton, won the Aerospace Technical Group Best Student Paper Award.

The students weren’t the only ones honored at the annual event. Recent alum Hanna Barton (BSBME ’18, MSIE ’19, PhDIE ’23) received two very special honors:

• HFES Inclusion Award for Service – in recognition for their work in building affinity groups and ensuring society cares for minoritized populations.
• Robert L. Wears Early Career Award, awarded by the HFES Healthcare Technical Group, for academic contributions made so far in their career.

The department was a dominant force in the overall programming for the conference. Professor John Lee organized and ran a menor/mentee lunch for students and young professionals, hosted a workshop on the design of AI for people, and participated in a panel on space human factors research. Assistant Professor Jackie Cha chaired the augmented cognition and user experience TG  programs.  Associate Professor Tony McDonald chaired the Student Professional Day career panel and participated in the event’s speed networking activity, which was organized by graduate students Patrick Fuller and Yinsu Zhang. PhD candidate Vianney Renata organized a panel on network building between students and full members of HFES. And finally, numerous students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, presented their research at the event.

Grainger Institute for Engineering Professor Ranjana Mehta, who was honored in 2024 with the society’s Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award, attended this year’s event in the role of mentor with several of her students. “My students who patiently work with me at the NeuroErgonomics Lab are the experts! This past week I was truly grateful to be among the brightest of them!”