Seminar: Human health and performance in complex environments - Aug. 28
Katya Arquilla
Katya Arquilla
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Friday, Aug. 28 | 10:40 a.m. | AERO 111
Abstract: Operations in complex environments are characterized by limited infrastructure, resources, and expertise coupled with multiple environmental stressors that interact with and amplify each other to affect human health and performance.Ìý For example, future Lunar operations will require astronauts to explore dynamic terrain with increased risk of injury while experiencing challenges to visual acuity in permanently shaded regions and communication delays with mission control.Ìý Each of these factors presents a unique challenge to both individual performance and team dynamics.Ìý In this talk, I will describe the research my group is doing to address these challenges and dig more deeply into wearable sensing as a method of unobtrusively monitoring changes in human health and performance across environments.Ìý I will discuss the utility of collecting continuous physiological data, pressing challenges for wearable sensor signal quality in complex environments, sensor design decisions that can mitigate these effects, and novel analytical approaches my group has developed to increase the potential information gleaned from each physiological signal.Ìý Future space exploration missions and operations in extreme environments on Earth are becoming increasingly complex, with automation and artificial intelligence playing a greater role in operational teams, so quantifying and augmenting human health and performance will be critical to mission success.
Bio: Dr. Katya Arquilla is an Assistant Professor in the Ann and H. J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, where she is one of five PIs in the Bioastronautics Laboratory.Ìý Her work focuses on characterizing human health and performance in complex, operational environments laboratory experiments, analog space missions, and field studies.Ìý She received her B.S. degree in astrophysics from Rice University in 2014, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering sciences from the University of Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Boulder in 2018 and 2021, respectively.Ìý Prior to joining the faculty at Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô Boulder, Dr. Arquilla was a postdoctoral researcher and faculty member in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.Ìý