Critical Issues Impacting Science, Technology, Society (STS), and Our Future

Heather C. Lum is an assistant professor at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. She earned her Ph.D. in applied experimental and human factors psychology from the University of Central Florida in 2011. Her primary research interests focus on perceptions of technology, specifically the ways in which technology is impacting the way we interact with each other as humans. Other areas of interest include the use of psychophysiological measures such as eye tracking and vocal analyses to better determine and study the critical applied cognitive and experimental topics of interest such as spatial cognition, human-human and human-robot team interactions. She has also turned her attention to the use of games for training and educational purposes. In addition to her research pursuits, Dr. Lum is a faculty advisor for Psych Club, the Behrend chapter of Psi Chi, is chair-elect for the Cognitive Engineering & Decision Making Technical Group and former program chair for the Education Technical Group Since coming to Penn State, she has advocated for the advertisement of human factors as the discipline within the university. She has successfully proposed an undergraduate interdisciplinary certificate in human factors, a course in the psychology of gaming, an interdisciplinary course in human factors in design and art, and a minor in game development on campus.