University of Waterloo
Engineering 5 (E5), 6th Floor
Phone: 519-888-4567 ext.32600
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Contact the Department of Systems Design Engineering
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Catherine Burns is a Systems Design Engineering Professor and the Director of the Advanced Interface Design Lab at the University of Waterloo.
She conducts research in Ecological Interface Design, cognitive work analysis, and graphical interface design and visualization, which has been applied in military systems, healthcare, power plant control, and oil and gas refining.
Ecological Interface Design (EID) draws design principles from both ecological psychology and engineering. The goal of EID is to present the operator with all the information needed to understand how to achieve plant goals while using a transparent interface. Experimentally, EID is showing great promise as an approach to designing interfaces for systems such as petrochemical plants, power plants and in aviation. This research aims to continue to explore this framework and expand its successful implementation to industrial situations.
Professor Burns’ current projects include mobile decision support tools for cardiac nurses, supporting situation awareness in power plant operators, diabetes management tools, and supporting human-to-human and human-to-agent collaboration in uninhibited aerial vehicle environments. Her research is sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, Bell University Labs, Research in Motion (RIM) and NSERC.
Professor Burns is the author of over 100 publications and also recently co-wrote a book on EID. She is the Program Chair for the Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making Technical Group of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
University of Waterloo
Engineering 5 (E5), 6th Floor
Phone: 519-888-4567 ext.32600
Staff and Faculty Directory
Contact the Department of Systems Design Engineering
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Indigenous Initiatives Office.