Prospective Students

PhD students

Potential PhD students should be highly motivated and interested in learning. In our lab, PhD students are expected to be comfortable with and conduct human-subject experiments. Best candidates should have previous research experience either through a master's thesis or an extended research experience for undergraduates (REU) program. Potential students should be familiar with inferential statistics and some software packages (e.g., R, SPSS, SAS, etc.), as well as a programming language (i.e., Python, Java, C, C#, C++, etc.).

In order to be considered for admittance into the School of Industrial Engineering PhD program at Purdue University, ALL STUDENTS must submit an official application to the Purdue University Graduate School . If you have particular School of Industrial Engineering-related questions, please contact the IE Graduate Program office. In your "Statement of Purpose", make sure to indicate that you are interested in working in the NHanCE Research Lab with supporting details explaining why. To receive funding considerations, the application deadline is usually around December 15. U.S. citizens should apply by this deadline, as there are several university fellowships for which they may be eligible. In addition, U.S. citizens are encouraged to seek external fellowships (such as NSF GRFP, Ford Fellowship, Hertz, NDSEG, SMART, etc.) prior to applying to our program. Please note that these fellowship applications are usually due near the time of PhD applications.

Master's students

Highly motivated potential master's students are welcome to become involved in our lab, if already enrolled at Purdue University. Students will be expected to perform human-subject experiments and develop a master's thesis (if enrolled as a thesis student). Potential students should be familiar with (and/or willing to learn) inferential statistics and have some knowledge of a programming language (such as Python, Java, C, C#, C++, etc.).

If you have any particular questions, or are interested in changing to the thesis option, contact the IE Graduate Program office. Please note, however, that funding is generally not available for master's research students.

Undergraduate research students

Highly motivated and curious undergraduate students who are interested in cognitive ergonomics/engineering are welcome to become involved. In particular, students from IE, psychology, HCI, computer science, ME, and related areas might find our research most closely aligned with their interests. Other disciplines may be a fit as well.

Computer programming students

Given that most of our research projects involve simulated human-subject experiments, we are always looking for highly motivated undergraduate computer programming students from Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or any related field. Best candidates are at least sophomores and those who have developed software and/or programs outside of course requirements. Potential students should have a good knowledge of various programming languages and environments (Python, Java, C, C#, C++, Microsoft Visual Studio, etc.), as well as basic knowledge of electronics, computer hardware, software-hardware interfacing, socket and network programming, and web applications. Students should also be willing to learn new software languages and packages as needed.

Any student interested in any of the above positions should contact Dr. Pitts.