Humans Upfront Episode-2

Dr. Lauren Reinerman-Jones is currently a Section Manager and Principal Analyst at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Professor of Special Programs at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU). She has vast experience in human factors psychology, modeling, simulation, experimental design, technology, training, and AI enabling her to be a strong leader in synergistic solutions to problem spaces. Her extensive experience includes working with the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Special Forces, DARPA, IARPA, FBI, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Her internal driving force is to deliver revolutionary scientific discoveries and advanced capabilities, leaving a legacy of greatness for generations to come.

CDR Sciarini was born in New York, but considers Florida to be his home. After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps he began his academic pursuits which culminated in a doctorate in Modeling and Simulation from the University of Central Florida. Following the completion of his PhD, he was commissioned into the Navy Medical Service Corps. He completed the Aerospace Medicine Specialist Course at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, and was subsequently designated a Naval Aerospace Experimental Psychologist # 141.

He has served as a special projects officer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division’s Training and Human Performance Research and Development Branch. He also served as the Technical Direction Agent for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Human Performance Training and Education (HPT&E) Thrust supporting the enhancement of the cognitive and physical superiority of Marines. CDR Sciarini held dual appointments as assistant professor in the Operations Research Department and the Modeling Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) Institute at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS). After NPS, CDR Sciarini was assigned to the Naval Survival Training Institute in Pensacola, FL where he served as the Director of Training Technologies where he helped introduce four new training systems to the Naval Aviation Survival Training Program. Most recently, CDR Sciarini was the Director for Research Services at the Naval Health Research Center where his team coordinated business operations enabling all research, development, testing, and evaluation at the DoD’s premier operational health research center. CDR Sciarini has held the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair for Institutional Review Boards, Privacy Officer, and Human Research Protections Official on numerous occasions.

Scott Wilson Harris LtCol, (Retired) United States Marine Corps has over 30 years of experience as a human performance specialist for the Marine Corps and the Department of Defense. Scott is currently the Program Manager for the Supporting Arms Virtual Trainer (SAVT).  After retiring from Active Duty in 2017 LtCol Harris served as the Co-Director for the SIMITAR Lab at the University Central Florida until September of 2021. He served as the Principal Investigator for the assessment project establishing the baseline for the Army Synthetic Training Environment.  The Training Capabilities Assessment project included testing of all fielded training systems for Army Aviation, Armor, and Infantry training.  

As an active-duty Marine, he served in billets of increasing responsibility as an instructor/test pilot for CH-46E, TH-57B&C, and a simulation tester for MV-22, and F-35. Selected and served as a USMC Acquisition Professional 8059, Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Program Management Level 3 certified for 15+ years. Coached and guided a team of experts to develop a plan to assess the capability of fielded simulators to provide operationally relevant training for Infantry and JTACs in coordination with F-35 Pilots.  Facilitated a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between Naval Air Systems Command and Lockheed Martin.  In 2010 Scott was assigned by Headquarters Marine Corps to serve as the Program Manager for all Marine Corps Aviation Training Systems at PMA-205. Prior to that, Scott served on the staff of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in J8 as the Vertical Lift Strategic Funding and Requirements Analyst.  In J8 he was responsible for preparing Chairman and the Vice -Chairman for Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) decisions on programs such as JAGM, JASSM, AH-64E and CH-53K. 

Nathan Jones serves as PS’s Solutions Architect for Government programs and Human Systems Scientist with 24 years of experience with Government programs as a human systems integrator, working with operational, learning, and training technologies to include artificial intelligence, modeling, simulations, and simulators. He has focused on the intersection of human performance measurement and immersive environments with a focus on information and visual fidelity. At PS, Mr. Jones has led several efforts performing system requirements analysis, system architecture, product development and program management. Prior to PS, Mr. Jones served as the Manpower, Personnel, and Training Functional Lead within a program office at Marine Corps Systems Command. In that role, Mr. Jones was responsible for manpower calculation, determining personnel requirements, and training requirements for over 20 programs of record. He also earned his Level III certification in Logistics. Efforts included performing mission-job-task analyses, front-end-analyses, human systems integration, supporting system development, post development verification and validation efforts, and supporting logistics analyses. He has gained an immense expertise in modeling and simulation covering stand-alone systems and Live-Virtual-Constructive (LVC) federations. He led the successful accreditation of seven Marine Corps systems.

Received Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) Commander’s Excellence in Marine Air-Ground Task Force Engineering team award for planning and leading efforts that included defining new methodology of measuring training value. Identified $9 million in added training value in two-week live exercise. Results and observations from effort were utilized for defining JCIDs requirements for USMC future distributed simulation-based program valued at $100 million.

With 20 years DOD civilian experience and 13 years as a defense contractor, Dr. Hudson has spent most of his adult life supporting the warfighter. He works for the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) as a Science and Technology Manager. He is currently matrixed to the Program Executive Office for Simulation Training and Instrumentation (PEOSTRI) as an Assistant Program Manager (APM) for the Synthetic Training Environment – Live Training Systems (STE-LTS) program.

Dr. Hudson earned his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, from Mississippi State University, in 1991 and later earned his master’s and Ph.D. in the inter-disciplinary field of Modeling and Simulation, from the University of Central Florida, in 2013 and 2016, respectively. Dr. Hudson’s research focused on developing an effective assessment tool to support talent management (personnel selection and training). As a small business owner and high school basketball coach he’s always had a passion for understanding the art/science of decision making and how to determine potential leaders using physiological measures as predictors. Dr. Hudson also holds a current Florida State Real Estate License which includes biennial ethics training, statutory reviews, and extensive legal theory examinations. 

Jill Miller has been working as a Government Contactor since 1996.  With a BS in Chemistry from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (now Stockton University) and MS in Aeronautical Science/Human Factors from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Ms. Miller spent most of her career in Homeland Security conducting both training, and performance and human factors testing. Ms. Miller’s Human Factors background allowed her the opportunity to gain a position at Spectrum Software Technology (SST) in 2018 and broaden her career experience to work in the Aviation Weather Group with the FAA as well as Healthcare within Veteran Affairs since 2022. At SST, Ms. Miller serves as a mentor to new team members and supports multiple teams to help identify usability issues in Electronic Health Care Records Management systems in the VA.    Front End Analysis is important in all human factors evaluations since defining identifying possible factors that contribute or lead to the root cause of the problem (technical, training, etc), and evaluating possible solutions is paramount to human factors evaluations. Understanding the goals and objectives, and other constraints are critical for designing a successful evaluation. 

Dr. Ryan Wohleber is a Research Psychologist for Air Force Research Laboratory’s 711th Human Performance Wing within the Warfighter Learning Technologies line of effort. He earned a BS in Industrial Design and MA in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati, and a MS and PhD in Modeling and Simulation from the University of Central Florida. He has over 15 years of experience designing, conducting, reporting, and critically reviewing research to support 1) improved theoretical understanding of important psychological constructs used in applied settings, 2) design of human-machine interfaces, including adaptable and adaptive interface solutions, and 3) personnel selection and human performance optimization strategies. This work is documented in nearly 50 publications. In his previous research associate and research scientist positions at the Institute for Simulation and Training and Soar Technology (respectively), he lead or co-lead major research efforts with Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, the Defense Health Agency, and DARPA, and supported efforts with IARPA and several industry partners including DENSO and Westinghouse. He is a past Augmented Cognition Technical Group Chair for the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society.