Helen Altman Klein, Ph.D.

Helen Altman Klein, Ph.D., a Senior Scientist at MacroCognition LLC, has served as Professor of Psychology, at Wright State University, as Graduate Faculty Member in the Human Factors/ Industrial Psychology Program, and as Applied Behavioral Science Program Director. Dr. Klein's research uses field observation techniques and Cognitive Task Analysis interviews to explore the underlying perceptual and cognitive demands presented by complex tasks in natural domains. Within the framework of cognitive engineering, the cognitive and decision making characteristics and capacities of users must match the demands of tasks within a domain. She has explored domains including civil aviation, military command and control, driving, and architecture.

She has developed training for personnel working with NATO forces. Her cross cultural studies have included participants from Britain, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Panama, Malaysia and the Arab Middle East. She has looked at medical self-management tasks ranging from patient compliance with medication instructions to the difficult demands of managing diseases, like diabetes. The goal is to redesign tasks and/or address user limitations to better match demands and capacities.

She has presented her work to numerous professional forums in the U.S. and abroad and has published over 100 papers and abstracts. Her work has been funded by organizations including Boeing Aviation, DARPA, DMSO, ARI, ARL, and AFRL.

She has served at a Visiting Professor of Psychology at Western Australia Institute of Technology and as a Visiting Scholar at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem Israel. She received her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969.