A fifth-year student in the Cognitive and Experimental Program, Betty Murphy is a veteran of two previous graduate schools. She received a Master of Arts in Teaching in 1966 from Wesleyan University and a Master's in Psychology in 1983 from George Mason University. Betty did her undergraduate work at Cornell University, where she majored in English. After Wesleyan, Betty taught high-school English for several years and then "retired" to raise two little Murphys. It was during this period of retirement that she completed her previous degree in psychology at George Mason.
Since 1983, Betty has been working the the field of human factors, specifically human-computer interaction and cognitive modeling, first with Computer Sciences Corporation and then with CTA Incorporated, a small aerospace company with headquarters in the Washington, DC area. With colleagues, Betty has published over 30 papers in conference proceedings and journals, such as The International Journal of Man- Machine Systems, Telematics and Informatics, and The International Journal of Aviation Psychology. She and a co-author recently revised a chapter on "Information Processing in Air Traffic Control," which is to appear in a book from Academic Press entitled Human Factors in Air Traffic Control. For the Federal Aviation Administration, she has co-edited Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of Air Traffic Control Systems.
Betty's research interests center on memory and decision making in complex automated environments. With Dr. Kent Norman of the Laboratory for Automation Psychology, Betty is working on a grant from the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center to investigate the effects of increased automation on human performance in advanced ground control systems. She is also developing a dissertation proposal to conduct controlled research on human performance in an environment that mimics an advanced ground control center.
Betty lives in Fairfax, VA, with her husband and son, three dogs, and a cat. Another adult child (age 26) has left the nest but returns periodically for brownies. When she is not working on her lit review or travelling to conferences, Betty can usually be found somewhere on the Capital Beltway (Rte 495).