Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics (CCI) announces the appointment of Professor
Ellen Bass, PhD as head of the College’s Department of Information Science effective May 1, 2015.
Bass shares joint appointments in both CCI and the College of Nursing and Health Professions (CNHP). She also holds affiliate status in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems. Bass currently serves as a member of the Board on Human-Systems Integration (BOHSI) of the National Academies. She also serves as the editor in chief of the journal
IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems. Her research contributions can be decomposed into four synergistic areas: characterizing human judgment and decision making; modeling human judgment when supported by automation; computational models of human-human and human-automation coordination; and design and evaluation of socio-technical system interventions to improve human judgment and decision making.
“Forming the new department is the next step in the evolution of CCI and is an acknowledgement that information systems are ubiquitous in many human endeavors,” Bass said. “I’m looking forward to working with the faculty and professional staff to educate the next generation of informatics, computer, data, and library scientists and to working with the faculty and students to solve complex problems in a world where people working together are increasing supported by information and information technology.”
Bass has over 30 years of human-centered systems engineering research and design experience in air transportation, biomedical informatics, healthcare, process control and weather related applications. Early in her career, she was a systems engineering practitioner specifying and testing the human-automation interaction for real-time, complex systems. Since then, the focus of her research program is to develop theories of human performance, quantitative modeling methodologies and associated experimental designs that can be used to evaluate human-automation interaction in the context of total system performance. The outcomes of the research have been used in the systems engineering process: to inform system requirements, procedures, display designs and training interventions and to support system evaluation.
Bass earned a bachelor of science in engineering (BSE) with a major in bioengineering and a bachelor of science in economics (BSE) with a major in finance from the University of Pennsylvania; a master of science in advance technology from the State University of New York at Binghamton; and a doctorate in systems engineering with a major in human-machine systems and a minor in artificial intelligence from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Interim Dean
Spiros Mancoridis, PhD would like to thank the Information Science Search Committee for their recommendation and Alice B. Kroeger Professor
Jane Greenberg, PhD for serving as the interim department head for the past two months.