Alice Winter

I am currently the Mission Operations Training Lead on the Europa Clipper Mission. I lead the training and simulation program for the mission, where we evaluate the flight operations team and the efficiency of our processes. I think deeply about the human element of operations and what the team needs to be successful in their flight operations roles.

My experience is a collection of system engineering, human factors research and user experience.

I hold a MS in human factors psychology and a BA in psychology.

But what is Human Factors?

Human factors is an interdisciplinary field of psychology + engineering. The goal of human factors is to improve human performance. Depending on the system, this can be a matter of safety, or it can simply mean improving the experience of the user (UX).

The field as of human factors as we know it today began with the onset of World War II, when displays and machinery, especially in aviation, were becoming more complex and demanding on operators’ cognition. It became clear that the human mind — attention span, decision-making, memory, perception — could be a significant performance bottleneck, and had to be considered in the design of machines to reduce human error.