About Our Lab

    Our lab is committed to fostering a diverse and positive learning environment. To this end, we aim to:

    • provide a safe, equitable, and inclusive environment through deliberate actions.
    • celebrate our differences and use them better our science.
    • respect individual needs, styles, and career goals and mentor accordingly.

    We demonstrate this by:

    Acknowledging that medicine and medical research has a history of bias, inequity, neglect, direct harm against marginalized groups of people. Race has no genetic basis.

    Rejecting all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including those based on age, color, ability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, health, and veteran status.

    Confronting prejudice or bias when we see it. Taking responsibility to help eliminate bias and discrimination and for increasing our own understanding of these issues through education, training, and interaction with others.

    Affirming the right of each person to express thoughts and opinions freely and safely, and be heard.

    Encouraging open expression within a climate of civility, sensitivity, and mutual respect. Solutions to difficult problems require different perspectives and backgrounds, we strive to continuously intentionally cultivate culturally diverse and multidisciplinary voices for this lab.

    Respecting the community that we are surrounded by, including the FBRI, VTC and Carilion Clinic and the region in which we work.

    Seeking, through our work in human factors and healthcare, ways to further understand and acknowledge the inherent bias that we have, and identifying active ways to address these biases.

    OUR TEAM

    Dr. Sarah Parker is the Chair of Health Systems and Implementation Science at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. She has over 15 years of experience applying human factors and industrial/organizational psychology principles to healthcare. Sarah Parker received her BA in psychology from Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH and her MA in human factors and applied cognition from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked at Mayo Clinic applying human factors principles to various inpatient quality and safety challenges. She then pursued her PhD at University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Sarah was a Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow, focusing on team coordination during trauma resuscitation in the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare at MedStar Health. Her research has been funded by the NIH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CDC, NSF and many other local and national foundations. Lastly, Sarah and her husband Michael are the parents of three great kids, Layla, Jack and Miles.

    Nikitha Donekal Chandrashekar, PhD

    Postdoctoral Associate, Virginia Tech

    Nikitha is a Postdoctoral Associate at Virginia Tech Carilion. Her research focuses on the design and application of emerging technologies like Extended Reality (XR) and Generative AI, to support professional skills training and education. She is also interested in the pedagogical and curricular implications of Large Language Models in computing education and currently collaborate with the Computer Science Department on curriculum innovation involving large language models.

    Walter Dickey

    PhD candidate in the Translational Biology Medicine and Health program, Virginia Tech

    Walter’s previous work has focused on improving surgical training, developing high-fidelity training models, and advancing prosthesis design. With a background in Clinical Neuroscience, he focuses on applying innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to understand the complexity of health systems and identify effective areas for improving and understanding the clinical space and those who work within it. 

    Brian Nguyen

    Student Researcher, Virginia Tech

    Brian is a student researcher at Virginia Tech in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. His research interests span Human Factors Engineering, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and Human-Centered Design, with specific focus areas evolving based on ongoing work with Dr. Vaughn-Cooke and Dr. Parker.

    Whitney DeLong

    Program Manager, Health Systems and Implementation Science, Virginia Tech

    Whitney holds a BA in Psychology and supports Dr. Parker in in her different roles along with her lab. Whitney enjoys being a mom to her four children.

    Adam Probst, PhD

    Director of Human Factors, Carilion Clinic

    Dr Probst is a highly knowledgeable human factors executive with over seventeen years’ experience in the operational implementation of human factors and cognitive engineering science to healthcare with a focus on patient safety and quality. He has extensive experience leading local, regional and enterprise-wide patient safety and quality initiatives focusing on the eradication of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) and sentinel events.

    Emmanuel Tetteh, PhD

    Senior Human Factors Consultant, Carilion Clinic

    Dr Tetteh earned his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with a concentration in Human Factors from Iowa State University of Science and Technology and worked in numerous research and applied roles at the Mayo Clinic during and after his doctoral studies. His expertise involves studying human physical and cognitive capabilities and using that to design efficient healthcare systems and processes that maximize efficiency and reduce human errors in patient care environments.

    Yuhao Peng

    Senior Human Factors Consultant, Carilion Clinic

    Yuhao received his M.S. in Industrial Engineering, with a specialization in Human Factors and Statistics. In his free time, you can find Yuhao either hiking, traveling, or drinking bubble tea.

    Harsh Sanghavi

    Senior Human Factors Consultant, Carilion Clinic

    Harsh received his M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering with a focus on Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics. Outside of work, Harsh enjoys playing tennis, cooking, and watching football.

    Faculty Affiliates

    Dr. Francis C. (Frank) Dane is a social psychologist (Ph.D., University of Kansas, 1979) whose research encompasses group dynamics, mindfulness, mathematical models of medical outcomes, and environmental determinants of learning through simulation. One specific focus of his research are the dynamics of ad hoc performance ensembles or temporary, recurring teams whose members come together for a specific task, such as in-hospital resuscitation or surgery, and then disband until needed again. He is also highly interested in Psychological Fidelity, the perception of how a simulation experience compares to the actual experience as well as developing statistical models of medical outcomes. In addition to being Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Radford University, he holds secondary faculty appointments at Mercer University School of Medicine (Macon, GA) and Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (Roanoke, VA). Dr. Dane is a member of the Board of Directors of the Mindfulness Institute of the Roanoke Valley and the Board of Directors of the Virginia State Simulation Alliance. In addition to charter memberships in the Association for Psychological Science and the Virginia State Simulation Alliance, he is a member of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, and is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He also serves on the Editorial Boards of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Critical Care, and Simulation in Healthcare.
    Dr. Lauren Kennedy-Metz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Roanoke College.  She is an alum of Roanoke College, graduating in 2014 with a BS in Psychology, minor in Creative Writing, and concentration in Neuroscience.  From there, she joined the Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health PhD program at Virginia Tech and completed her PhD with a concentration in Neuroscience under the mentorship of Dr. Sarah Henrickson Parker in 2018.  She went on to complete a postdoc with Dr. Marco Zenati at Harvard Medical School and the VA Boston, until joining the faculty at Roanoke College in the summer of 2022.
     At Roanoke, Lauren teaches psychology and neuroscience undergraduate courses and directs her lab focused on psychophysiological measurement, assessment, and intervention related to how various populations experience and cope with stressors in their environment.  Examples of student-led projects to date include literature reviews (e.g., summarizing lab-based stress-inducing tasks common in psychological research and investigating the stressors faced by first responders in the line of duty) and experimental approaches (e.g., psychophysiological responses to a popular horror video game comparing PC vs. VR delivery, frontal hemodynamic responses to nicotine-related cues, cardiovascular responses to stressors representing varying difficulties, and time to coherence using heart rate variability biofeedback methodology).  Broader interests involve leveraging psychophysiological sensors to characterize and optimize stress responses in various domains, including but not limited to police force, school settings, healthcare, and others.