This study will use a short survey to collect data from attendees at a special session at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Annual Meeting. The 90-minute session will take place at the Annual Meeting of the HFES in October, 2019, as a general session. The session is open to all annual meeting attendings. Our aim is to engage a broad audience in the session; our study is focused on session attendees. A previous alternative session focused on creating amazing leaders demonstrated the efficacy and utility of the proposed mini-workshop format as a panel at the annual meeting.
This session builds on a succession of panels organized by the HFES Diversity Committee (of which Dr. Wooldridge is a member) from 2016-2018. In 2016, the panel described the history of the Diversity Task Force (the precursor to the committee), provided an overview of current activities, and discussed the HFES vision to advance inclusion. The 2017 panel introduced the newly named diversity committee that was formally integrated into the Society’s Internal Affairs Division. This panel discussed the advantages of having a more diverse society, described opportunities for increasing diversity within HFES, and presented ideas on creating a community of inclusion. Recognizing the suitability of HFE as a discipline to tackle issues related to DISJ (Chiou et al., 2017), the 2018 panel focused on current efforts and future opportunities for HFE researchers and practitioners to advance DISJ through applied work. The session this study will occur in expands upon previous sessions to provide attendees a concrete path forward to engaging in DISJ work within the Society and improving our broader impact outside of the Society.
The session at the 2019 Annual Meeting, where this study will be conducted, is a 90-minute session of four concurrent, mini-workshops with these topics:
- Ensuring inclusive excellence in HFE training and education
- Broadening participation in HFE
- Potential partners in DISJ-oriented HFE research
- Considerations for conducting DISJ-oriented HFE research, including finding funding and working with marginalized populations