Psychology Professor Receives Environmental Science Award
UCF Pegasus Professor, Peter A. Hancock, D.Sc., Ph.D., was the 2016 recipient of the Sidney D. Leverett, Jr., Environmental Science Award. The award was presented during the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) Honors Night Ceremonies, April 28, 2016, at the Harrah’s Resort Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ. Dr. Hancock received the award for his consistent and influential contributions concerning the effects of thermal environmental conditions on cognitive working capacity.
Dr. Hancock has worked to explain the manner in which differing expressions of thermal stress affect operator attention capabilities and working memory. He applied those theoretical concepts to pilot and astronaut operations and has specified thermal performance limits for military personnel in all facets of mission completion. His work on stress and performance has been applied to a large spectrum of operational challenges, but especially to aviation. His more recent work in the field of thermal environmental conditions has been used extensively by modelers and climate scientists to project the impact of increasing terrestrial temperatures on individual and social cognition. He has also made many contributions to the understanding of differing sources of environmental stress on human mental performance, including noise, vibration, and the effects of differential profiles of ambient gas composition.
Dr. Hancock is currently Provost Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Simulation and Training, as well as in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCF. In his previous appointment, he founded and was the Director of the Human Factors Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, where he held appointments as Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology, and Kinesiology, as well as at the Cognitive Science Center and the Center on Aging Research. He continues to hold an appointment as a Clinical Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Minnesota. He is also an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Transportation Institute of the University of Michigan and an affiliated Scientist for the Humans and Automation Laboratory at MIT.
To read more about Dr. Hancock, click here.