engineering

Mica Endsley

Mica Endsley is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mica Endsley rather than just read about it. In short: Mica Endsley is an American engineer and a former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force. Early life and education Endsley was born in California and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston, Texas, where she attended Spring Woods High School.

Key takeaways

Mica Endsley belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mica Endsley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mica Endsley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mica Endsley is an American engineer and a former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force.

Early life and education Endsley was born in California and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston, Texas, where she attended Spring Woods High School. In 1982, Endsley graduated cum laude from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas with Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering. In 1985, she earned a Master of Science degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California in 1990.

Career The position of the Chief Scientist was created over 60 years ago to provide independent scientific advice to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, as well as to its senior leadership. In this role, she worked with the top scientists and engineers within the Air Force as well as in academia, industry, and the other armed services to ensure that the Air Force's research and development efforts remain relevant and effective. Additionally, as the Chief Scientist she responded to any tasking from the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff on issues or opportunities of a scientific and technical nature that may arise. Endsley was the first human factors engineer and the first female to serve as Chief Scientist. From 1997 to 2013, Endsley served as president and CEO of SA Technologies in Marietta, Georgia, a cognitive engineering firm specializing in the development of operator interfaces for advanced systems, including the next generation of systems for aviation, air traffic control, medical, power, oil & gas, and military operations. Prior to forming SA Technologies, she was a visiting associate professor at MIT in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and associate professor of industrial engineering at Texas Tech University. Endsley has authored over 200 scientific articles and reports on situation awareness, decision making and automation and is recognized internationally for her pioneering work in the design, development and evaluation of systems to support human situation awareness and decision-making, based on her model of situation awareness. This human-centered design approach has been found to be critical to successfully integrating people with advanced technologies and automation in a wide variety of domains. In addition, Endsley has developed training programs for enhancing situation awareness among individuals and teams. She is co-author of two books, Analysis and Measurement of Situation Awareness and Designing for Situation Awareness. She is Past-President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society where she is a fellow, was co-founder of the Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making Technical Group of HFES, and has previously served on its Executive Council. Endsley has received numerous awards for teaching and research, is a Certified Professional Ergonomist and a Registered Professional Engineer. She is the founder and former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making and serves on the editorial board for three major journals. Endsley received the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Jack Kraft Innovator Award in 2003 for her work in situation awareness.

Selected publications Endsley, M. R. (1995). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32-64. Endsley, M. R. (1995). Measurement of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 65-84. Endsley, M. R., & Garland, D. J. (Eds.). (2000). Situation awareness analysis and measurement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Endsley, M. R., & Jones, W. M. (2001). A model of inter- and intrateam situation awareness: Implications for design, training and measurement. In M. McNeese, E. Salas & M. Endsley (Eds.), New trends in cooperative activities: Understanding system dynamics in complex environments (pp. 46–67). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Endsley, M. R. (2006). Expertise and Situation Awareness. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (pp. 633–651). New York: Cambridge University Press. Endsley, M. R., & Jones, D. G. (2012). Designing for situation awareness: An approach to human-centered design (2nd ed.). London: Taylor & Francis.

References This article incorporates public domain material from Dr. Mica R Endsley Biography. United States Air Force.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mica Endsley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mica Endsley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mica Endsley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mica Endsley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mica Endsley

In research: Mica Endsley appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mica Endsley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mica Endsley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American engineers, 21st-century American women engineers, American academic journal editors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mica Endsley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Mica Endsley” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Mica Endsley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mica Endsley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mica Endsley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mica Endsley in simple terms?

Mica Endsley is an American engineer and a former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force. Early life and education Endsley was born in California and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston, Texas, where she attended Spring Woods High School.

Why does Mica Endsley matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mica Endsley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mica Endsley.