ISE Seminar: Ranjana Mehta

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From First Response to the Factory Floor: Human-Robot Teams in Action

What does it take for humans to trust and work effectively with robots, especially when lives are at stake? As robotic systems are increasingly deployed from disaster response to Industry 4.0 environments, their effectiveness depends on how humans interact with and rely on them under conditions of uncertainty, fatigue, and time pressure. This presentation introduces a neuroergonomics approach that examines brain-behavior relationships, combining neuroscience and engineering to understand, assess, and augment human-robot teaming in real-world settings. Drawing on field studies during real-world disasters and simulated laboratory-based physical human-robot interactions (HRI), this work reveals how human mind motor interactions and behaviors shape trust and collaboration with robots. Trust is critical for effective HRI, yet it remains inadequately measured in dynamic, real-world environments. Traditional self-report measures provide limited, static, and often incomplete representations of trust. This talk will present how brain activity, eye movements, and motor behavior reveal the evolution of trust across operator states and individuals, and how these dynamics influence reliance and performance. Implications for designing human-centered robotic systems will be presented with the goal of enabling effective and resilient HRI in complex environments and shaping the future of work.

Bio
Ranjana Mehta is the Grainger Institute for Engineering Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Neuroergonomics Lab. She received her PhD from Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on mind-motor-machine interactions to understand and enhance human performance in safety-critical environments that involve emerging technologies such as robotics and wearables. Her innovative research program has attracted over $20.33M in extramural funding from major funding agencies and has resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. She has received several honors from national organizations, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, where she is a Fellow, and the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE), and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the IISE Transactions of Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors.