Dr. Jill Lynn Drury

I am retired after 44 years at The MITRE Corporation, but am open to research collaborations. Contact me at jldrury (at) gmail

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Optimizing human interaction technology and work processes to support team-based decision-making in safety-critical applications; particularly for robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, and command and control systems.  See my full research statement here.

EMPLOYMENT

The MITRE Corporation, June 1980 to July 2024

Department Manager, Advanced Software Innovation Department*. Responsible for setting department strategy, supervising a cohort of the most senior people in the division as well as a cohort of researchers, and enabling those staff to provide service to the larger division (550 people). Immediate prior position was Acting Technical Director of the 438-person Data and Human-Centered Solutions Innovation Center. Was responsible for setting the technical direction of the organization, creating its strategy, generating new business, determining technical research directions, and overseeing department managers. Prior to that, my position was Department Head of the Collaboration and Social Computing Department. Over a 17-year period, grew the department from 16 people to 70 people with a 9-person management team, including diversifying the work program and developing an early-career talent pipeline. In addition to management responsibilities, I also made technical contributions to projects in the areas of collaboration and human-machine teaming.    

*final position; started as Member of the Technical Staff. 

University of Massachusetts Lowell, September 2002 to Present

Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department.  I have taught graduate courses in human-computer interaction (HCI) and research human-robot interaction in partnership with Prof. Holly Yanco and Prof. Guanling Chen via National Science Foundation (NSF) grants.  I served on the Industry Advisory Boards for the Computer Science Department and the Kennedy College of Sciences.  I was Coordinator for the Computer Science department's Certificate in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from 2009 - 2015; I revised its requirements, approved applicants, and taught its three core courses. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 2006 to November 2008

Visiting Scientist. In collaboration with members of Missy Cummings' Human and Automation Laboratory, I researched team decision-making in real-time command and control.  (Two year maximum appointment.)

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES (note: see invited speaking engagements here)

• Invited panelist for National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal review, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2008 (further details withheld to maintain blind review status)

• Invited Innovation Women Pop-up Panel Speaker at HUBweek2017 (Boston), October 2017

• Invited participant in the Innovation Women speaker's bureau, 2015 - 2024

• Conference Organizing Committee member for the Naturalistic Decision Making 2015 Conference

• Invited speaker at Department of Defense Human Factors Engineering Technical Advisory Group meetings on Human-Machine Teaming (HMT), 2014, 2011, 2010

• Invited panelist at Cornell Cup (Robotics) Competition, Orlando, FL, May 2013

• Co-founder and editorial board member, Journal of Social Media for Organizations, 2013 - 2023

• Invited reviewer of human-machine teaming research grant proposals submitted to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO; a government agency in The Hague), March 2013

• Conference Organizing Committee member (Workshops and Tutorials Co-Chair) for the Human-Robot Interaction 2012 Conference

• Scientific Committee Member of the 2012 and 2011 Information System for Crisis Response and Management Conference, April 2012 and May 2011

• Workshop organizer, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2010

• Invited member of UMass Lowell Computer Science Industry Advisory Board, 2009 - 2024

• Thesis committee member for students from UMass Lowell and MIT (see my collaborations page for a listing), 2006 - 2024

• Invited "Distinguished Scientist" at an Advanced Career Mentoring Workshop organized by CRA-W (the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research), June 2010

• Invited Human-Machine Teaming tutorial co-presenter, with Holly Yanco, at Collaborative Technologies and Systems 2010 conference, May 2010

• Scientific Committee member of HUMans Operating Unmanned Systems (HUMOUS) 2010 and 2008 Conferences 

• Invited panelist in the Career Paths Panel in the Front Row Program, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, October 2009

• Invited participant in Army-sponsored workshop on Human-Machine Teaming (specifically in the area of human-robot interaction), May 2009

• Coordinator for Certificate in Human-Computer Interaction at UMass Lowell, 2009 - 2015

• Program Committee member, Associate Papers Chair, session chair, and tutorial presenter at the Human-Robot Interaction 2009 conference

• Co-organizer of a workshop on Supervisory Control [of automated systems] in Critical Systems Management during the Human-Centered Processes 2008 conference, June 2008

• Invited reviewer of human-machine teaming grants submitted to the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology in Wellington, New Zealand (a government agency), March 2008

• Co-editor of special issue of The Edge, published by The MITRE Corp., Summer 2007

• Co-editor of special issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems on Interacting with Autonomy, March/April 2007

• Program Committee member for the Human-Robot Interaction 2006 conference

• Tutorial presenter at Intelligent User Interfaces 2006

• Invited participant in NSF Workshop on Human-Robot Interaction, September 2006

• Invited by NASA to serve on a review board for internal human-robot interaction research proposals (paid position), July 2004 

• Special Interest Group track Co-Chair/Conference Committee member, CHI 2002 conference

• Program Committee member for the IEEE International WETICE 2000, 2001, and 2002 conferences

• Workshops track Co-Chair and Conference Committee member CHI 1999

• Reviewer for numerous conferences (especially CHI, WETICE, HRI, ISCRAM, and ITS) and journals

• Numerous guest lectures (see presentations and courses taught page)

• Session chair, 1994 Symposium on Command and Control Research and Decision Aids

• Member, ACM Special Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI)

• Member, Society for Women Engineers (SWE)

• Host/organizer of seven SWE meetings at MITRE, 1999 - 2006

PATENT

• "System and method for creating a simulation model via crowdsourcing," US Patent Application filed 21 May 2014, serial number 14/284,167.

SELECTED AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

• Mass High Tech "Women to Watch" 2010 award, March 2010

• Program Recognition Award for MITRE Institute Web Application Redesign, June 2003

• Corporate Knowledge Management Recognition Award, March 2002

• University of Massachusetts Lowell Outstanding Computer Science Graduate Student Award, May 2000 (one student recognized per department per year)

• Director's Distinguished Accomplishment Award, August 1998 

EXAMPLE TECHNIQUES AND METHODS USED

• User requirements elicitation/analysis via such means as direct observation, artifact analysis, and Common Ground analysis

• Field methods such as Contextual Inquiry and ethnography

• Task analysis techniques such as Hierarchical Task Analysis and Applied Cognitive Task Analysis

• Evaluation criteria definition for implicit, explicit, and subjective evaluation methods 

• User requirements documentation via methods such as formal specifications, use cases, task analysis diagrams, and scenarios 

• Formal modeling techniques such as Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS) and State Transition Diagrams

• Inspection evaluation techniques such as Heuristic Evaluation, guidelines checklists, and standards-based inspections

• User-based evaluation techniques such as Formal Usability Testing

• Multi-user software specification and evaluation techniques such as Synchronous Collaborative Awareness and Privacy Evaluation (SCAPE)

• Situation Awareness evaluation techniques such as Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and Location, Activity, Surroundings, Status, Overall mission (LASSO) evaluation

• Experimental design/conduct/analysis, including writing human-subjects institutional review board applications

• Qualitative data analysis techniques such as Grounded Theory

• Design techniques such as Participatory Design and Contextual Design

• User-System Interface Working Group leadership 

• Usability Engineering Lifecycle management via software engineering and systems engineering techniques

Go to: Publications, Research statement, Research collaborations. Presentations and courses taught, Grants, or Personal page. 

Updated 17 June 2025.