Naila Ayala

Dr. Naila Ayala is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo, working under the supervision of Dr. Michael Barnett-Cowan. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Waterloo in 2024, following a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Western Ontario. Building on her doctoral research in eye tracking and visuomotor control, Naila now investigates cognitive and motor processes using integrated multimodal sensor technologies (e.g., heart rate (HR), electroencephalography (EEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye tracking, and motion capture systems) across real-world and extended reality (XR/VR) environments.

With a foundation in the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie behaviour, her current work focuses on advancing physiological and behavioural signal integration methods to improve the modeling performance, reliability, and generalizability of various cognitive states (e.g., cognitive load) and complex skill acquisition.

Naila collaborates with the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA) to ensure her research is grounded in real-world applicability. Her goal is to translate scientific insights into impactful tools for the aviation sector, including data-driven pilot training paradigms, human performance monitoring systems, and optimized human-machine interface design.

Selected Publications:

• Ayala, N., Kearns, S., Irving, E., Cao, S, Niechwiej-Szwedo, E.(2025). Exploring gender differences in aviation: Integrating high-fidelity simulator performance and eye-tracking approaches in low-time pilots. Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA’25), May 26–29, 2023, Tokyo, Japan
• Ayala, N., Kearns, S., Irving, E., Cao, S., & Niechwiej-Szwedo, E. (2025). Eye Tracking During A Complex Aviation Task For Insights Into Information Processing. Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE, (218), 10.3791/66886. https://doi.org/10.3791/66886
• Ayala, N., Zafar, A. ., Kearns, S. ., Irving, E. ., Cao, S. ., & Niechwiej-Szwedo, E. (2023). The effects of task difficulty on gaze behaviour during landing with visual flight rules in low-time pilots. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.16.1.3

• Ayala, N., Zafar, A., Niewchwiej-Szwedo, E. (2022). Characterizing individual differences in task performance and task difficulty with gaze entropy. Journal of Vision, Vol.22, 3662. doi:https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.22.14.3662

• Naila Ayala, Diako Mardanbegi, Andrew T. Duchowski, Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo, Shi Cao, Suzanne Kearns, and Elizabeth Irving. 2023. On The Visibility Of Fiducial Markers For Mobile Eye Tracking. In 2023 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA ’23), May 30–June