Mark
Fenske
Mark's graduate research in visual cognition led to a post-doc at the University of Wales - Bangor and a faculty position at Harvard Medical School. His current research combines neuroimaging techniques with studies of human behaviour to examine factors that are critical for optimal cognitive and emotional functioning. His efforts to translate scientific findings and make them accessible to the public at large includes the bestselling book, The Winner's Brain: 8 Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success and his popular "Better Brain" column, which regularly appeared in The Globe and Mail. Mark is currently an associate professor at the University of Guelph.
Robert
McCann
During his time at Waterloo, Rob investigated basic processes in reading. He then completed a National Sciences Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Ames Research Center in California, conducting basic research in human multi-tasking performance and the role of attention in visual word recognition. During the 10-year period from 1990-2000, he co-developed a suite of cockpit displays to help pilots navigate airport surfaces in low visibility conditions. One of his publications from this work, An Evaluation of the Taxiway Navigation and Situation Awareness (T-NASA) system in High-Fidelity Simulation, won the Society of Automotive Engineer's Wright Brothers Medal for outstanding technical paper in 1999. In 2000, Rob joined NASA Ames’ Information Sciences and Technology Directorate as a NASA research psychologist. He is currently designing and conducting human factors evaluations of cockpit displays and user interfaces for next-generation spacecraft that will one day take crews to Mars.