Outstanding Technical Contribution in Government

Vernol Battiste
Research Psychologist
NASA Ames Research Center

By Garland L. Thompson

Vernol Battiste works at the human-machine interface, examining topics little understood but vital to the progress of air transport in the 21st century.
A former Air Force jet engine technician, he became an air traffic controller, completing FAA training with honors in 1977. His experiences with aviation hardware then in the cockpit of air traffic control gave Battiste a unique perspective on the capabilities and safe separation of aircraft. 

Battiste returned to school to get his bachelor's degree, graduating with honors in 1984 from California State University at Hayward with a major in experimental psychology. He completed a master's degree in experimental psychology, with emphasis on human factors, at San Jose State University, in 1987. Now he was ready for investigations into how human beings interact with keyboards, controls, and displays. Battiste's "soft" science is being applied to the "hard" science of cockpit instrument design, with benefits that will help unclog crowded skies and make air transport safer and more efficient.

Battiste is a coprincipal investigator working to figure out how to make better cockpit displays for pilots, to permit federal authorities to move forward with the next wave in air traffic control, "Free Flight" of aircraft, with greatly reduced intervention by controllers. He has established a leading laboratory for research on cockpit situational displays, a critical component of any air traffic management system.

In his lab, Battiste has assembled 13 specialists from NASA and Eurocontrol, an NRC postdoctoral fellow, software engineers, and San Jose State researchers to design prototype cockpit displays suitable for Free Flight, and his design has been validated by simulation exercises. The concepts have been further refined and validated by a Cargo Airlines Association flight test. 
Battiste also deployed a remote lab facility at United Airlines Operations Center, bringing access to commercial pilots for his research and that of other Ames scientists. He has authored or coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers and 21 reports and other publications in his field.

His work is at a critical cutting edge, reshaping the way aviators receive and use vital information about air traffic and air safety.

Garland L. Thompson is assistant managing editor of The Philadelphia Tribune and a member of the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Selection Panel. He can be reached at GThompson@ccgmag.com.