About

Barrett S. Caldwell, PhD

is a Professor of Industrial Engineering (and Aeronautics & Astronautics, by courtesy) at Purdue University. His PhD (Univ. of California, Davis, 1990) is in Social Psychology, and BS degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Humanities (MIT, 1985). His research team is the Group Performance Environments Research (GROUPER) Laboratory. With over 200 publications, Prof. Caldwell and GROUPER examine and improve how people get, share, and use information well in settings including aviation, critical incident response, healthcare, and spaceflight operations. Prof. Caldwell has served on multiple panels, and in a variety of projects, associated with the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). He co-organized the National Academy of Engineering US Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) 2008 session on Cognitive Ergonomics, and participated in 2003 US FOE, 2006 German-American FOE and 2016 Japan-U.S. FOE. NASEM committee service has included panels on Systems Engineering to Improve Traumatic Brain Injury Care in the Military Health System; Human Factors Science at the Army Research Laboratory; Information Technology Automation and the U.S. Workforce; and, most recently, Human-AI Teaming: State of the Art and Research Needs. During 2016-17, Prof. Caldwell was a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, assigned to environment, science, technology and health policy in the Office of Japanese Affairs.

Prof. Caldwell has been Director and Principal Investigator of the NASA-funded Indiana Space Grant Consortium since 2002, promoting STEM education throughout Indiana. He was elected Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in 2008, and was elected to the IISE Council of Fellows in 2022. Since 2020, he has served on the Purdue Equity Task Force and Implementation Team as a strategic advisor and Provost Fellow for the West Lafayette campus to address racial inequities facing recruitment, experience, and success of African-Americans at Purdue. From January 1 – May 31, 2022, Prof. Caldwell provided stewardship to the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue as the Interim Head.