Episode #24: Interview with John Flach

Naturalistic Decision Making

Date: 12/17/2020

Show Description:

John Flach received his PhD in human experimental psychology from The Ohio State University in 1984. After more than 30 years of teaching and supervising graduate research in universities, he joined Mile Two--a custom software development company--as a senior cognitive systems engineer. John has written extensively about cognitive systems engineering (CSE) and ecological interface design (EID) approaches to human performance and design, including three co-authored books, three co-edited books, and more than 180 archival publications. After many years of talking and writing about CSE and EID, he is enjoying the opportunity to test what he has learned against the challenges of designing practical solutions to contemporary problems in sociotechnical systems.

Learn more about John’s work:

John’s blog

Mile Two

A Meaning Processing Approach to Cognition

Amazon author page

Learn more about NDM:

NaturalisticDecisionMaking.org

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Where to find hosts Brian Moon and Laura Militello:

Brian’s website

Brian’s LinkedIn

Brian’s Twitter

Laura’s website

Laura’s LinkedIn

Laura’s Twitter

Timestamps:

John’s early experiences as a mental health counselor [1:40]

Making the shift to Human Factors [7:16]

Becoming introduced to the Naturalistic Decision Making community [9:06]

Connection to Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands [10:30]

Parallels between human factors, NDM, and cognitive system engineering [13:23]

Explaining complex ideas in creative ways [19:26]

BLANK [22:35 – 22:58]

Surprises in shifting to an applied setting [24:23]

Things, events, and experiences that have had an impact on John’s perspective as a researcher [29:32]

“There may not be individual cognition’ [31:47]

Something about John that most people don’t know [39:24]

The kind of work that has been the most rewarding [41:10]

What’s next on John’s research agenda [47:04]

“If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would you choose?” [51:06]