PEOPLE

Four psychologists were inducted as Distinguished Practitioner members of the National Academies of Practice (NAP): Robert Brown, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland?College Park; Herbert Fensterheim, PhD, a private practitioner in New York City; Ronald F. Levant, EdD, a private practitioner in Belmont, Mass.; and Robert J. Resnick, PhD, a professor of psychology at Randolph Macon College, in Ashland, Va. NAP chair Alan Entin, PhD, the psychology chair of the NAP and a private practitioner in Richmond, Va., and co-chair Jean Carter, PhD, a private practitioner in Washington, D.C., inducted the new members at the organization?s seventh Annual Interdisciplinary Health Care Forum and Banquet, held April 24?25 in Arlington, Va.

NAP constitutes individuals who have been designated by their peers as significant contributors to the advancement of professional practice. NAP is an interdisciplinary health forum that addresses public policy, education and research. It has 10 academies: dentistry, medicine, nursing, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, podiatric medicine, psychology, social work and veterinary medicine.

Psychologists Norma Graham, PhD, and Charles C. Gross, PhD, are among the 60 new members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Election to the academy is one of the highest honors bestowed on U.S. scientists and engineers?membership in the academy recognizes extraordinary original research. Graham is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, where she has taught for the past 27 years. She is one of the initial developers of the concept of spatial-frequency channels?neurons or groups of neurons that respond to different grains or textures in human vision. Her current research focuses on the development of a mathematical model to explain the processing that occurs in texture segregation. Graham earned her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Gross, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, studies the roles that different brain structures play in visual perception and visual learning. Gross has been and instructor at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a visiting scientist and scholar at universities all over the world, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience and the University of Oxford. He earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Tony Strickland, PhD, has been appointed associate dean for research and director of research at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Strickland, a clinical neuropsychologist who has been teaching at Drew for 12 years, has a strong background in biobehavioral research. He has been funded by the National Institutes of Health during his tenure at the university.

Strickland is charged with helping the university grow, which will require some innovative thinking in the changing health-care field, he says. He plans to set up partnerships between Drew and private pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and other universities to broaden the university?s research scope and reduce its dependency on federal funding.

Strickland has served in a number of roles at Drew, including associate director of the Biobehavioral Research Center, chief of psychiatry research and director of the Neuropsychology Training Program. He is an associate professor of psychiatry at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California?Los Angeles School of Medicine, and he runs Neuropsychological Consultants, Inc., a private consulting firm. Strickland earned his PhD in clinical psychology (behavioral medicine) at the University of Georgia, and completed postdoctoral fellowships in psychopharmacology and neuropsychology at UCLA.

?Jamie Chamberlin

Air Force recruits a psychologist for crew training

Psychologist Robert Mahan, PhD, is leading a multimillion-dollar effort for the U.S. Air Force to develop an Internet-based simulator to train aircraft crews. The simulator is expected to help crews make better decisions and will save the government money on training.

Mahan, a professor of cognitive and experimental psychology at the University of Georgia, is designing the system for the E-3 Sentry, or AWACS, a modified Boeing 707 that enables surveillance from the Earth?s surface into the stratosphere, over land or water. The aircraft was used in Operation Desert Storm and is used now in efforts to monitor activity in the Persian Gulf.

'The AWACS is one of our most important high-value assets in complex military operations because it provides command and control for all levels of engagement,' says Mahan.

Training AWACS crews in team decision-making is crucial, he says. But the training has been expensive and time-consuming. Many crews are evaluated at the high-fidelity simulator located at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and the cost adds up to send trainees there from posts all over the world. Maintaining the simulators at Brooks is also expensive. So Mahan, who has a background in military science research, proposed that the Air Force use Internet technology to train crews. In theory, trainees around the world will be able to learn to coordinate and perform complex decision tasks without ever leaving their home bases.

Here is how Mahan?s system works: A 'commander' sits at a desktop computer and logs into Mahan?s Advanced Human Resource Project lab Internet server and accesses the synthetic team effectiveness assessment and modeling site (SynTEAM). Selecting the appropriate training 'kit,' the commander defines several parameters, such as the number of participants, the level of difficulty and the length of the exercise. After the kit is configured, the trainees log into the site from their respective locations to compose a 'crew.'

The kit trains crews to master tasks and tackle problems, and by using intelligent agent software, the kit determines performance, workload and concentration levels. The commander can monitor the team from the desktop PC or instruct the kit to automatically send an evaluation of the team performance at the conclusion of the exercise.

Keeping crews alert during long missions is another problem Mahan is studying, one that is currently remedied by medications that chase away drowsiness. Mahan will dedicate a phase of his project to identifying technology that can combat fatigue and other variables that corrupt decision-making.

Although Mahan is designing the system for the Air Force and military applications, private corporations can eventually use the technology to train decision-making work groups whose members work in different countries or time zones. An initial version of the AWACS simulator should be ready for testing by the end of 1998, says Mahan.

?Jamie Chamberlin