Meet: Dr. Alan Pope

Engineering Psychologist

NASA, Langley Research Center

Who I am and what I do

I am the inventor of twenty-one NASA technologies. My first patent was a video game designed to help alleviate the problem of Attention Deficit Disorder. Another invention is a virtual reality technology, which is being tested for the treatment of peripheral vascular disease, a complication of diabetes. You can see a video about the videogame invention on the website of Network of the World (www.now.com under "Gamer"). This invention was featured on the 8/10/00 "CBS Early Show" and on techtv. You can read about the medical virtual reality invention in 7/4/00 New York Times, and about the video game neurofeedback invention in March 2001 Discover magazine, in the 2000 book "Symphony in the Brain", and in 9/1/00 Science magazine. For more information on these inventions, see the following articles:

Video Games May Lead To Better Health Through New NASA Technology
NASA Technology May Help Victims Of Diabetes
Virtual Reality Feedback article
Video Games to treat ADD?

Education and Career Path

I chose Electrical Engineering (EE) as my undergraduate major at Tennessee Technological University, which I attended on a work scholarship, and I found the study of engineering to be nothing like the technician's work I had in mind. I graduated "with Highest Distinction", and then went on to graduate school on fellowships in EE, first at Vanderbilt University, then at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where I earned the Master of Science in EE. But not before I had my interest attracted to a new field, Psychology.

I took Introductory Psychology while a graduate student in EE and realized that I wanted to be involved in direct people services as part of my life's work. In pursuit of this new goal, I turned down an NDEA fellowship that would have continued my EE graduate study toward the doctorate, and transferred to the University of Kentucky on a teaching assistantship in the Psychology Department to take graduate coursework in that field. With that new grounding in Psychology, I was accepted into the Clinical Psychology graduate program at the University of Florida (UF).

Fortunately, the first year of Florida's graduate program was essentially a review of the major subspecialties of Psychology, something I sorely needed. At Florida, I began a career-long pattern of applying my engineering training, and, equally, the technician skills that I had been practicing all along, to make unique contributions to my new field of Psychology. As a research assignment, I worked in the Visual Sciences Laboratory at UF, using my engineering skills to help the staff and students investigate the brain's electrical response to visual stimuli. My own doctoral dissertation research involved both brain electrical response analysis and the newly emerging technology of biofeedback.

While working on my dissertation, I was offered the position of Clinical Research Psychologist at the FDR VA Hospital in Montrose, NY. The position required a completed doctoral degree, but was offered to me, anyway, with the requirement that I would have to complete my doctoral degree within the first year in order to keep my job. With a one-month-old daughter, the need for an income overrode the risk of relocating and working under that time pressure. I barely finished the degree under the deadline, and remained at Montrose to conduct research in psychophysiology; in a few years I became Director of the Behavior Therapy and Biofeedback Clinic and Laboratory at the Hospital. In this capacity, I lectured and published in the area of psychophysiological research methods and instrumentation, as well as providing patient care services in Behavioral Medicine. While at Montrose, I developed the first complete computer-based adaptive training system for biofeedback-assisted relaxation therapy.

On a visit to Eastern Virginia Medical School to interview for a position there, I contacted an old engineering school friend in the Tidewater Virginia area, and learned that there was an interest in developing physiological measurement capability at my friend's workplace, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). This led me to a twenty-year long and ongoing association with NASA. Since joining NASA LaRC in Fall 1980, I have created and led the Human Engineering Methods program, where we use measurements of pilots' physiology to evaluate how the pilots are responding to flying aircraft simulators with various controls and displays and under various flight conditions. This work involves conducting experiments with pilots in flight simulators where electrical signals from the brain and nervous system are measured and analyzed to determine how the pilots are reacting mentally and physically. A primary objective of this research program has been to develop methods for evaluating the impact of automation on the aircrew's ability to perform flight tasks effectively. A recent focus of this work is determining brainwave signs of "hazardous states of awareness" (boredom, stress, inattention), which contribute to flight crew error in aviation accidents, in order to identify what cockpit conditions cause these mental hazards and what can be done to prevent them.

Growing Up

I grew up in a "blue-collar" neighborhood of suburban Nashville, Tennessee, where my parents and their neighbors had moved in from the "country" to the "city" to be "where the jobs were" with Dupont and other factories. My early role models were my father and the other technicians, pipefitters, and machinists of Dupont and Avco factories, who proudly viewed their occupations as crafts, and "brought their crafts home with them" by recreating shops in their homes. A next door neighbor even had an entire machine shop in a separate cinderblock building, where I spent many hours being guided in creating "mechanical marvels." Although my mother never finished high school and my father dropped out of pharmacy technician school, education was highly valued in the Pope family; all three sons earned college degrees, and two earned graduate degrees. During high school, a family friend sparked my interest in electronics by loaning me his old Army Signal Corps training manuals, which I pored over after school when football and band weren't in season.

Family

I am very proud that my children have chosen careers in education. My daughter, Diana, is 27 years old and teaches English at the high school level. My son, Jeremy, is 25 and is in graduate school on his way to becoming a college professor teaching African History.

My Future Plans and Goals

My immediate plans are to mentor the younger members of my research team in continuing our research to benefit aviation safety, and to work to see my inventions made into products that help people develop stronger mental and emotional resources. Upon retirement from NASA in a few years, I plan to devote myself to private practice in Clinical Psychology and college teaching.