Dr. James Tittle, a principal scientist at Charles River Analytics, served on a panel at the National Defense Industrial Association’s 2017 Human Systems conference, which took place in Springfield, VA, from March 7-8, 2017. The theme of this year’s event was “Achieving the Third Offset: Maximizing Human-Machine Symbiosis.” Keynote speakers included Dr. Jason Matheny, Director of IARPA, and Rear Admiral David Hahn, Chief of Naval Research.

As part of the panel, Dr. Tittle joined other industry representatives in discussing the challenges of developing formal requirements for effective human-automation teaming, as well as aligning the objectives of Science and Technology research with program evaluation efforts. Specific requirements for supporting human-automation teaming included the need to develop shared representations to establish distributed Common Ground, and supporting enhanced automation trust using design elements improving automation transparency, predictability, and directability. The panel was moderated by Dr. Christopher Nemeth, Chair of the NDIA Human Systems Division, and other panelists included Ms. Laura Major of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Ms. Charlotte Shabarekh of Aptima, and Dr. Ron Storm of GCI.