PsyTE Lab
Psychology, Technology, and Engineering
In the PsyTE lab, Dr. D.A. Baker and students engage in interdisciplinary research focused on understanding how cognitive and social psychology can inform and be informed by the design, application, and infrastructure of smart systems. Current and past research involves multiple interdisciplinary projects with a wide range of topics and domains including smart energy systems (computers science and electrical engineering), citizen-driven water quality surveillance (environmental engineering), mining safety (mining engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering), smart-lighting (civil and architectural engineering), orthopaedics (biology & engineering management), and computer modeling citizen response to acts of terrorism (software engineering and sociology). These projects have sought funding from national organizations such as NSF, NIFA, DoD, and CDC, with budgets ranging from $6K to $4.9 million. Many of these projects have been funded (see Funded Projects and Awards for list) and undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to get involved (see Student Opportunities).
Dr. Baker's overarching goals in teaching, research, and service are to substantively integrate psychological science with engineering science to encourage human-centered, value-driven science and technology development.
Student Research Opportunities
Undergraduate Research Assistants. Undergraduate RA's assist with duties such as literature searches, creating experimental stimuli (using tools such as survey software, game developer software, 3-D printing, and photo editing software), running experiments, and recording and organizing data. Undergraduate RA's who wish to publish research or present at conferences must also be be involved with statistical analysis, formal research writing, submissions, and presentation.
Undergrad RA's may join the lab on a volunteer basis or as fulfillment of Psych 4099 (Special Problems). If funding is available for a specific research project, that opportunity will be posted here.
Graduate Students. Master's or PhD students interested in thesis research related to human factors, design and decision making, social behavioral implications of technology design, eye tracking, and VR please contact Dr. Baker.
Contact: If interested in learning more about research opportunities please email bakerden@mst.edu.
Psyte Lab Research News
Communications of the ACM - Job Candidates Are Rated Lower in Virtual Interviews, Researchers Say
The List - The disheartening truth about Zoom interviews
Ozarks First - Missouri professors are researching how employers see candidates through virtual interviews
Talk from UMKC's Human in the Digital Age Reseach Summit: "Ironies of Self-Quantification"
Midwest researchers aim to make home energy management systems even smarter
Energy efficiency takes a ‘village’
Funded Projects and Awards
(2021-2025): Co-PI, Research, Technological Innovations and Human Factors for Effective Miner Self-Escape from Underground Mine Emergencies; External - CDC-NIOSH; ~905,000/year (funded year-by-year upon annual re-approval).
(2020-2022): Co-PI, Research, Technology, and Human Interventions for Self-Escape in Underground Mine Emergencies; External - CDC; ~$955,000
(2019): Co-PI, Effects of video-mediated communication on attention, perception, and impression formation. Internal - MST, Center for Science, Technology, and Society. Seed Funding Grant - 1 year; $6500
(2016-2020): Co-PI -Integration of Social Behavioral Modeling for Smart Environments To Improve Energy Efficiency of Smart Cities; External - NSF/NIFA; $802,000
(2017-2019): Co-PI - Collaborative: Cellphone-Enabled Water Citizen Science for Data and Knowledge Generation, and Sharing: WatCitSci; External - NSF, EAGER - 1 year; $77,000
(2017): Co-PI, Human-Centered Origami and Kirigami Structures for Environmental Lighting. Internal - MST, Seed Funding Grant - 1 year; $32,000
Recent Pubs and Presentations
Gyawu*, E., Awuah-Offei, K., Baker, D.A. (Feb, 2022). Miner-Centered Approach to Understanding Technology Needs for Self-Escape in Underground Coal Mine Emergencies. 2022 Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) Annual Conference. Salt Lake City, Utah. Feb 27- March 2.
Casella*, E., Khamesi*, A., Silvestri, S., Baker, D. A., Das, S. (March, 2022) HVAC Power Conservation through Reverse Auctions and Machine Learning. Proceedings of IEEE, 20th International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom 2022), March 21-25, 2022 in Pisa, Italy/Virtual.
Silvestri, S., Baker, D.A. (Dec 2021)“A social behavioral approach to improve energy efficiency of smart residential environments.” TCSN Newsletter, IEEE Social Networks Technical Committee, No. 7, Dec 2021. https://sn.committees.comsoc.org/2021/12/03/tcsn-newsletter-no-7-december-2021/
Heatherly*, M., Canfield, C., Baker, D.A. (Oct, 2021). Designing for Automation: Potential Reactance from Smart Home Energy Management Systems. American Society for Engineering Management 2021 International Annual Conference. October 27-30 2021, Denver, Colorado/Virtual.
Baker, D.A., Burns, D., Kueny, C. (2020). Just sit back and watch: large disparities between video and face-to-face interview observers in applicant ratings. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 36(20), 1968-1979. doi: 10.1080/10447318.2020.1805874.
Baker, D.A. (2020). Four Ironies of self-quantification: wearable technologies and the quantified self. Science and Engineering Ethics 26(3), 1477-1498. doi: 10.1007/s11948-020-00181-w
Khamesi*, A.R., Silvestri, S., Baker, D.A., DePaola*, A. (2020). Perceived-Value Driven Optimization of Energy Consumption in Smart Homes. ACM Transactions on Internet of Things 1(2), 1-26. doi: 10.1145/3375801
Khamesi*, A., Musmeci*, R., Silvestri S., Baker, D.A. (Dec 2020). Reproducibility of Survey Results: A New Method to Quantify Similarity of Subject Pools. IEEE, Global Communications Conference, Dec 7-11, 2020, Taipei, Taiwan/Virtual. doi: 10.1109/GLOBECOM42002.2020.9348076
Shin*, E., Khamesi*, A.R., Bahr*, Z.,Silvestri, S., Baker, D.A., (Sept, 2020) A User-Centered Active Learning Approach for Appliance Recognition. 2020 IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing (SMARTCOMP), Bologna, Italy, 208-213, doi: 10.1109/SMARTCOMP50058.2020.00047.
Ur Rehman*, A., Awuah-Offei, K., Baker, D.A., Bristow, D. (Feb, 2019) Emergency Evacuation Guidance System for Underground Miners. Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) 2019 Annual Conference & Expo. Denver, Colorado.
Baker, D.A. (July, 2017). Wearables and User Interface Design: Impacts on Beliefs in Free Will. HCI International 2017, Vancouver, BC, July, 2017.
Dolce*, V., Jackson*, C., Baker, D.A., Silvestri, S., DePaola*, A. (June, 2018). Social-Behavioral Aware Optimization of Energy Consumption in Smart Homes. The International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS '18). doi: 10.1109/DCOSS.2018.00033
Silvestri, S., Baker, D.A., Dolce, V. (April, 2017). Integration of Social Behavioral Modeling for Energy Optimization in Smart Environments. In Proceedings of SocialSens’17, Pittsburgh, PA. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3055601.3055618 Scopus Analytics
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