ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (Oct. 15, 2018) -- The U.S. Army Research Laboratory recently held its 3rd annual Postdoc Research Symposium at APG during National Postdoc Appreciation Week. Researchers paid a special tribute in honor of the late Dr. Brad Forch, ARL senior scientist, who was a true advocate for the program.
During the symposium, postdocs and their mentors learned about the history of ARL's Postdoctoral Association, or PDA, showcased their research and attended a professional development panel discussion.
The laboratory established the PDA in late 2014, marking a major step forward for postdoctoral training at ARL. The founders designed the association to enhance the postdoctoral experience at ARL by creating an inclusive environment where postdoctoral fellows can interact, build professional connections and develop career objectives.
This year's event included a special keynote speaker, Dr. Jamie Lukos, founder and first-term-president of ARL's PDA. Lukos, who is now the Intelligent Sensing Branch chief at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Systems Center Pacific in San Diego, California, shared her experiences at ARL and provided valuable insight on developing goals and building professional connections.
"How do you decide what's next for you?" Lukos asked. "You've got to always look beyond yourself."
She also advised the postdocs to get to know the ARL fellows and said they are great advocates.
"Connections make a difference," Lukos said. "Having a peer group to identify with and interact with can really help provide a consistent base of support."
This advice was complemented by a panel in the afternoon that included diverse perspectives from Drs. David Stepp, acting director, Army Research Office; Betsy Rice, ARL fellow and team leader; and Mark Tschopp, regional lead, ARL Central. After providing a summary of their career trajectories, they fielded questions from the audience.
A central theme of the questions centered on how to balance the competing demands of research, organizational service and career development. The panelists emphasized the critical need to establish a scientific reputation and technical competence as the basis for any number of paths in a technical career.
In addition to the events hosted in the seminar room, 29 postdocs showcased their research during a poster session where ARL fellows and ARL scientists and engineers judged the work based on technical relevance, the presenter's content knowledge, poster organization and design, and verbal interaction. The judges then met and selected one winner for the "Brad Forch Best Poster" award.
This year's winner, Dr. Nina Lauharatanahirun, started working with her mentor Dr. Jean Vettel in ARL's Human Research and Engineering Directorate in January 2018. Lauharatanahirun presented research on "Quantifying risk and its relation to real world decisions."
Lauharatanahirun's research involved using behavioral economic models in combination with neuroimaging methods to identify individual differences in risk attitudes and their neural correlates. She demonstrated that economic risk attitudes -- not subjective risk ratings, were related to real world risky driving behaviors and discussed how quantifying risk has implications for improving and developing future technologies for Human-Agent Teaming.
"I really enjoyed talking with the diverse group of researchers from different disciplines about my current research projects at ARL," she said. "Next, I am hoping to better understand how these individual differences change under various social and operational contexts."
Vettel said a longstanding challenge for the Army is how to continually enhance a Soldier's agile and adaptive decision making.
"One critical aspect is to understand how risk estimates and risk tolerance change as a function of an operational context," Vettel said. "Nina's expertise in quantitative models of decision making nicely augments our ongoing research to develop methods to predict changes in risk attitudes so that we can numerically assess their influence on decision making."
Julia Cline from ARL's Weapons and Materials Research Directorate and event organizer said this year's event was a great success.
"Postdocs do great work here at ARL and postdoc research day is a forum for them to share that work with the ARL workforce," Cline said. "I think everyone that walked through the poster session learned something new about Army relevant research and even identified some potential future collaborations -- which is the goal."
Cline believes everyone who attended the event gained useful insight into furthering their professional development during the keynote and panel discussions and thanked her co-organizers, Chris Shumeyko, Vehicle Technology Directorate; Adam Wilson, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate; and Denise Yin, WMRD.
"We are grateful to everyone who helped make this event successful," Cline said. "The postdocs for presenting their work, the ARL fellows and S&Es for judging and the workforce for attending and we look forward to next year's event."
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
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