Who We Are:
Design Interactive Inc. (DI) is a woman-owned small business specializing in human systems integration and committed to developing innovative solutions that accelerate human performance. Beyond human performance research and experimentation, DI's capabilities extend to user experience design, full software development capabilities including immersive, mobile, and web application development, systems engineering and integration, and testing and evaluation. DI solves the most pressing human performance challenges for customers across the DoD, Federal, and commercial markets and is on the cutting edge in areas of: eXtended Reality (XR) training and operational support, adaptive training solutions, biosignature analytics, anduser experience design.
Why Work for Us?
Enjoy the opportunity to be part of an innovative and dynamic team on the cutting edge of emerging technologies and help expand our portfolio of human performance-enhancing solutions.
Summary:
The Senior Research Associate will lead research and development of technologies and methods for his/her unit while mentoring team members and identifying portfolio expansion opportunities. This role will also perform functions to identify, develop, and track proposals to fund future projects.
What You Need:
Masters or Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, HCI, or related field.
Minimum 10 years experience in project engineering with a user-centered design focus OR human factors/systems engineering in research and development.
Direct experience funding and developing R&D programs through white papers and proposals; Direct experience managing R&D programs.
Requires strong project management and networking skills
What You Will Be Doing:
Provide technical and strategic leadership for the development of eXtended Reality (virtual, augmented, mixed reality) solutions that empower human performance, with the aim of leading long-term research initiatives and associated intellectual properties.
Secure funding for future work through proposal development and direct selling and ensure funded efforts have a strong business case.
Lead the development of solutions by researching advanced technologies for human performance assessment, methods for modeling and predicting human-system performance outcomes, and innovative approaches for real-time personalized and adaptive user support, as well as working with DI's UI/UX designers and developers to fully develop the solutions.
Guide the development of real-time adaptive system frameworks that integrate data from multiple sources on user, task, system, and environment states to augment training or operational performance.
Provide direction, guidance, and delegation of tasks to teams on various projects; develop project schedules, resource requirements, and timelines, delineate constraints/prerequisites and maintain team productivity on project goals and objectives.
Manage project risk by identifying, quantifying and monitoring potential threats
Design and execute studies to ensure the usability of solutions, analyze data, and provide actionable recommendations to the project team.
Conduct independent research to validate the efficacy (e.g., training effectiveness, performance enhancement) of solutions, assimilate results, prepare written technical reports, follow-on proposals, and publications.
Communicate project status to key customers in relevant functional and technical areas; ensure customer needs are met through resource allocation, project planning, and execution.
Communicate project status to DI management and other project teams verbally and through various documentation and presentations, including project schedules, proposals, risk mitigation plans, transition plans, and related concerns and issues.
Maintain knowledge pertaining to DI's strategic direction, goals, and objectives and align projects appropriately.
Have fun with a team full of passionate researchers striving to make a profound impact on innovative solutions that empower human performance.
Other Responsibilities:
Promote DI products and services at various customer locations and functions.
Interview, recommend and train staff as required. May evaluate performance or assist in the evaluation process.
Recommend staffing requirements as necessary.
Physical requirements involve performing general office activities.
Position requires local, overnight, and a minimal amount of extended travel.
