Eric Nadler, Ph.D.
Dr. Eric Nadler has worked for 15 years as an Engineering Psychologist in the Human Factors Division of the U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. His recent work has evaluated aircraft performance, pilot eye movements, workload, and questionnaire items about a flight deck display of air traffic surveillance known as a CDTI. Four studies were conducted: use of CDTI for typical general aviation maneuvers (draft report under FAA review), for airport surface navigation and traffic awareness (draft report under FAA review), and for self-spacing behind a lead aircraft (in preparation). He also has provided an eye movement analysis for a NASA-Langley simulation study on self-spacing using CDTI (Oseguera-Lohr & Nadler, 2004). He contributed human-system interface design guidance for CDTIs that is due to be published in 2004 as a FAA Advisory Circular. He worked with the Safe Flight 21 human factors team that supported CDTI operational evaluations in 1999 and 2000.
Dr. Nadler also recently completed a draft report on human factors challenges for air traffic flow management (TFM) system integration and previously reported on ATC System Command Center acceptability of a convective forecast product for TFM (1999). Early in his Volpe Center career, he conducted simulation studies on the effects of satellite and voice-switching (VSCS) equipment delays on air traffic control communications, and on the effects of binaural VSCS delays on voice quality; the former was published in the International Journal of Aviation Psychology. He also determined the effectiveness of air traffic control tower simulation training at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. He received the U.S. Department of Transportation Patent Award for software that he developed for real-time recording of specialist activities in Airways Facilities units. The FAA Safe Flight 21 product team, Aircraft Certification, Flight Standards and Human Factors Research and Engineering Division have sponsored these aviation studies.
In the field of ergonomics, Dr. Nadler studied the effects of air traffic control facility lighting, and conducted a research synthesis to provide an empirical basis for rulemaking on the locomotive cab thermal environment. The latter study was published in Ergonomics. He served as a human factors expert on temperature effects at a meeting of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee.
Dr. Nadler received a Ph.D. in Psychology in 1984 from the Rutgers University Institute for Cognitive Studies in Newark, NJ. His dissertation concerned linguistic units in human memory. He taught a total of 25 courses in Psychology as a doctoral candidate and fulltime faculty member. While on the faculty of Wright State University (1986-1988) he taught courses in cognition and human information processing and conducted basic research on human attention at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.
Phone: 617/494-2449
E-mail: eric.nadler@dot.gov
