IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2020 - 21

making and behavior, examine virtual and
duties, that is, to help them have a betaugmented reality tools for enhanced learnter memory or make faster and more acing and situation awareness, and aid in the
curate decisions, so that, ultimately, they
performance of critical tasks, such as navicome home safely. The work that they do
gating unfamiliar environments. These labs
has many other applications as well, such
also research questions that provide critical
as for law enforcement, firefighters, first
information to system designers about how
responders, the medical community, and
users interact with the system and how
anyone who operates in a high-stakes,
such a system can be designed to minimize
stressful environment.
distraction and information overload and
The CABCS, which currently rents
maximize soldier performance.
space, is primed to move into its new loTo Mahoney, the most exciting lab is the
cation on the Tufts campus. This center
SUAVE lab, a one-of-a-kind lab composed
houses multiple labs, including a tradiof three virtual-reality caves. "It's unique
tional psychology testing lab, an electrobecause they are networked together so we
encephalography lab, a neuromodulation
can have multisensory immersion, includlab, a physical activity and brain lab, a
ing vision, sound, and vibrotactile," Mastate-of-the-art soldier tactical augmenthoney says. "The lab allows scientists and
ed reality (STAR) lab, and the Small Unit
engineers to look at individual or
Ambulatory Virtual Environment
team performance. We can
(SUAVE) Lab.
have teams in the same
The SUAVE and the
Mahoney
environment walkSTAR labs allow scienbegan her
ing through pertists and engineers
tenure at the CCDC
forming collective
working at the
SC working on a study
tasks so they can
CABCS to bridge
see and interact
the gap from tralooking at the effects of
with their teamditional academic
tyrosine supplementation
mates in the virlaboratory teston cognitive
tual environment.
ing to real-world
performance during
While in the virtual
complex tasks and
scenarios, scientists
environments. These
stress.
at the CABCS are able
labs use immersive virtuto measure physiology,
al-reality scenarios to elicit
neurophysiology, eye tracking,
and measure high-stakes decision

and behavior, allowing
for a more complete picture of how performance
changes in stressful environments."
For Mahoney, the
A soldier
greatest benefit of the
interacts with
information
partnership between Tufts
in augmented
and the CABCS is the
reality in the
opportunity to collaboSUAVE lab.
rate. Although the center
brings together a multidisciplinary group of worldrenowned engineers and
scientists, it also offers
interns and graduate and
undergraduate students
access to real-world experience, cuttingedge research opportunities, and mentorship. "What's so exciting to me about the
collaboration is that I get to work with
really talented, amazing scientists and
engineers on the DoD side of the house
and all of these amazing scientists and
engineers at Tufts University, and I get
to collaborate across disciplines in a way
that you don't get to in a traditional setting," Mahoney explains.
Mahoney's interest in collaboration
takes her far beyond Tufts' Medford, Massachusetts, campus. She represents the
United States on several international
committees and communities. She serves
as a U.S. member for a technical exchange
group for the Five Eyes intelligence alliance within the human performance domain. She is also the U.S. representative
on North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) panels that focus on measuring
and understanding cognitive performance
in complex environments. This, she says,
"is an exciting way to interact with scientists across all of the NATO countries to
solve a particular problem and really understand the perspective across countries
and across cultures."

DECEMBER 2020

-Katianne Williams is a
freelance writer specializing
in the technology field.

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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2020

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