Dr. Jill Lynn Drury, jldrury (at) mitre.org
Return to Jill Drury's Home Page
Go to publications page
Go to Research Statement
Go to research collaborations
You're on my presentations and courses taught page
Go to list of grants
From an introductory briefing on usability engineering
Micire, M., Drury, J. L., Keyes, B., Yanco, H., and Courtemanche, A. Controlling Robots Through Multi-Touch Technology. Presentation to Usability Professionals' Association Boston Chapter, June 2008.
Drury, J. L. Supervisory Control for Critical Systems Management. Invited presentation at Human-Centered Processes 2008 Conference, Delft, The Netherlands, June 2008.
Drury, J. L. and Scott, S. D. Team Supervisory Control Design Considerations. MIT invited Supervisory Control course lecture, March 2008.
Drury, J. L. Improving Situation Awareness for Human-UAV Interaction. Western Washington University Computer Science Department Colloquium, April 2007.
Drury, J. L. Characterizing and Evaluating Awareness in Multi-User Computing Systems. MIT Computer-Supported Cooperative Work course lecture, Cambridge, MA, April 2007.
Drury, J. L. Adapting GOMS for Human-Robot Interaction. MIT Humans and Automations Laboratory Seminar, Cambridge, MA, February 2007.
Drury, J. L. Decomposing Situation Awareness for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Usability Professional Association Boston Chapter, Woburn, MA, July 2005.
Drury, J. L. Improving Human-UAV Interaction. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Boston Chapter, Bedford, MA, June 2005.
Bowen, C. D. and Drury, J. L. Human-Computer Interaction Survival Skills for Systems Engineers: How the Air Force's Electronics Systems Center Trains Staff to Incorporate HCI into our Systems Acquisition Work. Given to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, April 2004.
Bowen, C. D. and Drury, J. L. Tools and Techniques: Human Computer Interaction Survival Tips for Battle Management/Command and Control Systems Engineers. Second Annual Conference on Battle Management, Washington, D.C., May 2002.
Drury, J. L. Extending Usability Inspection Techniques for Collaborative Systems. Mediamatics Department Seminar at the Technical University of Delft (The Netherlands), October 1999.
91.527, Human-Computer Interaction. UMass Lowell Spring 2007, Spring 2008.
91.528, Evaluation of Human-Computer Interaction. UMass Lowell Spring 2002, Spring 2003, Spring 2006, Fall 2008.
Human-Computer Interaction: Designing Technology for People. The MITRE Institute, October 2004, November 2007, December 2007. (14 contact hours)
Introduction to Human-Robot Interaction. Tutorial given to Intelligent User Interface Conference 2006, January 2006. Co-developed with Prof. Holly Yanco and Dr. Jean Scholtz and co-presented with Dr. Scholtz. (7 contact hours)
Acquiring Usable Collaborative Systems. The MITRE Institute, June 2003. (7 contact hours)
HCI Survival Skills for Systems Engineers. The MITRE Institute, October 2001, November 2001, January 2002, March 2002. (14 contact hours)
Even from the earliest days of my career I have been responsible for teaching difficult technical concepts to a variety of people. Working in MITRE's Federally Funded Research and Development Centers has required me to solve technical problems for government sponsors and then explain to them why and how they should implement my recommendations. My customers are usually smart people who do not have all the relevant technical knowledge (hence their need for MITRE's help), so I have continually found myself in the position of educating them while respecting their own areas of expertise.
It's tremendously exciting to create a learning environment in the classroom as a way of mentoring the next generation of professionals. I have taught two kinds of classes: 1- or 2-day courses for practitioners in a corporate or conference setting and graduate-level university courses. Both of these types of courses are concerned primarily with HCI—either for single-user or multi-user systems—and cognitive systems engineering.
In both types of courses I take a hands-on approach. Ideally, I plan for an hour of exercise(s) for every 90 minutes of lecture, with the exercises allowing students—usually working in groups—to experience first-hand what I’ve talked about in the lectures. HCI and cognitive systems engineering courses are well suited to this approach because computer-based interfaces are all around us and many of the techniques or theories about them can be illustrated or even attempted—at least in part—during the course of an hour exercise. If an exercise isn’t reasonable, I encourage discussion via “what if?” types of questions during which I ask students what they would do in various situations.
In the practitioner courses, I tailor each class session to the expectations and needs of the individual attendees. I start each class by using an exercise that has three purposes: get students to interact with each other, and to provide information to me regarding students’ prior relevant experience and expectations. I alter my lectures to provide more advanced information if the students are ready for it or more basic information if they have not been previously exposed to the material I’m presenting. I end the course by going over the information about expectations that I had captured earlier and summarize what I presented that pertains to their desires for the course.
In the graduate level courses I also try to be sensitive to students’ prior level of preparation but I am much more cognizant of the need to ensure that students’ attain a mastery of the course objectives. Each course involves a group project that mimics the type of teamwork I expect they will encounter in a workplace situation.
Besides the courses I have already taught, I am qualified to teach courses on managing a user-centered design team, interface localization/internationalization, collaborative or groupware systems, measurement of the user experience, intelligent user interfaces, human-robot interaction, usability engineering, field methods, and systems engineering. In addition, I feel confident teaching marketing (based on my MS in Business Administration) and basic computing courses at the undergraduate level.
Updated 21 July 2008.
