Gretchen A. Macht

University of Rhode Island | URI · Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Systems Engineering

Policymakers have structured legislation and set targets to increase the adoption of electric vehicles and the deployment of charging stations. As questions arise on how to expand the electric vehicle infrastructure, advanced computational models are attempting to quantify the future placement of charging stations. These models, however, do not nec...

This work aims to demonstrate entropy as a method that can be used to analyze team coordination using naturalistic team communication content. Much of team coordination happens through communication; understanding team communication is vital to better formulate and train teams for successful performance outcomes. Several decades of team communicati...

Motivated by the trend in literature that explores the effects of facilities layout planning in service systems, this work aims to observe the impact of layout and path directionality on voting system performance. A two-step voting system is considered, and a 1,000 sqft room is modelled under various layout and path directionality conditions. Discr...

For decades, election research in the United States has focussed on the potentially disenfranchising consequences of evolving election laws and procedures. With the widespread changes and requirements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, elections have adapted to prevent the spread of the virus. Despite implementing system changes, it is unclear what i...

A ubiquitous network of charging stations is vital to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and the achievement of a low-carbon transportation system. Currently, the availability of EV infrastructure differs significantly between communities as planning procedures are not necessarily equitable. Understanding the charging behavior of EV...

Free, fair, and secure elections are the foundation of a democracy. However, the idea of voting is simple, whereas its execution is complex. There are over 3000 counties in the United States, representing 10,000 election jurisdictions with varying laws, demographics, logistics, and levels of technology integration. There are numerous open challenge...

In the US, light- to heavy-duty vehicles account for the largest portion of total greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is critical in achieving the Net Zero goal of cutting carbon emissions. Approximately 11% of new car sales are EVs but adoption of this technology is still slow. The panel will present some of the...

Vote-by-Mail (VBM) has become increasingly popular over the last decade, but the process is executed differently even between jurisdictions within the same state. Currently, most VBM literature focuses on topics from the perspective of political science, and little-to-no work features analysis of operational aspects or human-machine interactions. D...

Objective This work aims to estimate the portion of electric vehicle (EV) users who exhibit procrastination-like behavior, almost equivalent to an “empty” battery, before they decide to charge their vehicles. Background There is a human tendency to procrastinate when a deadline approaches. Human behavior in the presence of deadlines has been studi...

The existence of electric vehicle users who procrastinate their charging activities – delay in charging until a critically low state of charge (i.e., almost empty battery) – is acknowledged in the previous survey studies and data-driven analyses. However, the underlying reasons affecting such behavior have not been explored. This study attempts to...

For a user-centered deployment of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) infrastructure, it is vital to understand electric vehicle user charging behavior. This study identifies user behavioral patterns by analyzing data from more than 7000 charging stations in Canada, comparing residential vs. public Level 2, and public direct current fast (DCFC...

The adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and infrastructure are increasing rapidly to meet the ever-growing global need for renewable energy sources. An obstacle to solar PV growth is the severity of the occupational safety risks associated with their installation. Although PV installers are known to experience some of the most significan...

As fuzzy cognitive mapping becomes more ubiquitous and transferable between fields, there is a growing necessity to be able to compare its results. However, despite the abundance of measures for this purpose, the act of comparing these maps is not widespread. This paper gathers different analysis measures and demonstrates how they can be used for f...

Using data collected from multiple teams of undergraduate engineering students, this study examines whether team members evaluate members of different perceived genders differently than they would a member of their own perceived gender. This was done using social relations modeling to analyze the dyadic differences within the teams over the course...

As holistic thinking goes, the effects of the system on the human are well-known in the HFES community. However, many practitioners have experienced the challenges of incorporating these effects into a life cycle approach. Systems engineering seeks to model, predict, and employ holistic thinking in the development of multi-part and complex systems...

Humanity is facing our greatest challenge ever: to address run-away global temperatures and ecosystem degradation threatening civilization as we know it. Human factors and ergonomics have much to contribute in partnering with industry, government, academia, and society as a whole, to stop the destruction of our home, and evolve systems to sustainab...

What role can Human Factors and Ergonomics practitioners perform to pave the path to evolving sustainability in design? Being “green” is often perceived to cost money, requires a commitment of resources even when there is not an apparent return on investment (ROI), sometimes it is just about being a good global citizen and responsive to the plight...

The widespread adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is hindered by their limited ranges and long charging times. Optimizing eco-driving strategies and BEV-specific routing through a thorough understanding of the BEV discharge behavior is vital to overcome these barriers in the short term. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of roa...

While the influence of several factors on battery electric vehicle (BEV) efficiency has been investigated in the past, their impact on traffic is not yet fully understood, especially when driving in a natural environment. This paper investigates the influence of driving in intense traffic conditions while considering the ambient temperature and dri...

With the rise in popularity and usage of Electric Vehicles (EVs), the need for charging stations has expanded. To handle the EV adoption growth and serve the users' demand properly, the development of a well-structured electric vehicle supply equipment infrastructure is needed, which requires substantial knowledge about charging stations usage. How...

In the United States, people are asked to vote on a myriad of candidates, offices, and ballot questions. The result is lengthy ballots that are time intensive and complicated to fill out. In this paper, we utilize a new analytical technique harnessing ballot scanner data from a statewide midterm election to estimate the effects of ballot complexity...

Learning curves are fundamental in understanding individual task performance, with ubiquitous implementation in task assignments, worker scheduling, team formulation, etc., in domains bridging from manufacturing to healthcare. With a broad range of applicability, it is critical that students conceptualize, visualize, and build learning curves to ac...

With the solar industry’s rapid growth, it is crucial to continuously review and assess the occupational risks associated with photovoltaic (PV) installations. PV installers are exposed to severe occupational risks, including but not limited to electrocution, heat stress, fall accidents, and manual handling risks. However, it is unclear what resear...

Electric vehicles (EVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), in particular, are considered a promising solution toward obtaining a sustainable, low-carbon mobility future. However, environmental and economic benefits depend on the specific vehicle and battery, the source of electricity used for charging, and an individuals' driving behavior. Quant...

Existing literature outlines mothers' negative experiences with breast pumps, yet a gap exists of which breast pump characteristics are important to mothers. Identifying which breast pump characteristics are important to breast pumping mothers, and any variation between mothers who do or do not work outside of the home, will help identify user need...

Teams are used in a variety of situations, for various purposes, and can be comprised of human and non-human members. Teams of highly diverse composition are quickly becoming the norm with human operations in many domains. Team diversity has been touted as both being the “holy grail” of team performance and its potential downfall. The reality is, h...

It is crucial to continuously review and assess the occupational risks associated with rooftop and ground-mount photovoltaic (PV) installations in the United States (U.S.) Solar industry. The Engineering, Procurement, and Construction sector of the U.S. Solar industry is growing rapidly and the current literature that investigates the occupational...

This work presents an empirically tested method to initiate community solar development by enabling cooperative behavior among groups of stakeholders. Shared solar represents only a fraction of distributed photovoltaic generation despite advantages over other distributed solar models. A framework that addresses the inherent characteristics of commu...

Communication in teams plays a vital role in team success. This work proposes Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) as a formalized, team communication methodology for the analysis of content and flow, simultaneously, of naturalistic team communication in a structured environment. Several methods of analysis of team communication exist. Few of them, however,...

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are becoming increasingly popular, showing annual sales growth, yet adoption is still limited. Maximizing distance driven between charges can improve user perceptions and usability of BEVs. Therefore, the ability to identify factors that influence a BEV's state of charge (SOC) in a naturalistic, experimental environ...

This study explores the gaps in research on the link between emotional intelligence (EI) and team performance with respect to operationalizations (i.e., mean, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, and proportion). The concept of EI is not new, nor revolutionary for predicting job performance. Studies use disparate psychometric measurements and envi...

There has been a significant increase in the sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States and abroad in the last few years. Nevertheless, the overall adoption of these vehicles is hindered by range limits of EVs in conjunction with long charging times. In this context, it is essential to determine current energy demands and to predict futu...

Analyzing the complex maze of content and flow in communication between team members could help unlock researchers’ understanding of team performance. This research analyzes the communication patterns of two teams, based on their team performance, in order to test and expand a developing team mapping technique to assess content and flow between tea...

Climate change will require the world to move toward greater sustainability. A systems perspective will be required to support this transition. Looking at the participation of sustainability-minded individuals in team settings may help determine how sustainability can be achieved in work systems. The literature on team formation is inconclusive as...

This paper presents the development of indices for assessing user perception of interactive technology elements. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed using data from Leicht (2009), where teams of engineering students (n=82) were asked to perform a collaborative site planning activity in interactive environments and assessed through a...

Since the turn of the new millennium, public awareness of sustainability has dramatically increased. Terms like "climate change" and "renewable energy" have become common household phrases. Sustainability is a holistic term referring to three main systems: humans, the economy, and the environment. Yet measuring the sustainability of a product remai...

Over three hundred thousand battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are currently registered in the United States as of 2015, which is less than one percent of the total market share. A quickly growing market for electric vehicles (EV) will inevitably lead to a high number of EV batteries reaching the end-of-life...

In architectural and civil engineering design, effective team collaboration is critical to creating functional built environments. To prepare future engineers for careers involving collaboration, this research paired first year engineering students with similar extraversion Five Factor Model scores in dyads to complete an introductory bridge design...

We consider the degree to which the Five Factor Model characteristic of individual conscientiousness is predictive of the overall performance of teams. An exploratory study was conducted within an undergraduate introductory to engineering course where random teams were required to complete a project. Cognitive style is collected with respect to eac...

In this paper, by using Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) technique, we developed the metacognitive models for team-based dynamic environment. Preliminary findings from our metacognitive studies provided a possible metacognitive framework in dynamic control tasks [1, 2]. By analyzing metacognition, performance, and communication data between team, we a...

The literature on emotional intelligence states that there is a mixed model that has some relationships with the commonly agreed upon Five Factor Model of personality. Even though these two constructs are treated as distinctly different metrics, their potential relationships could be a powerful indicator and useful tool toward understanding how...

We consider the degree to which the Emotional Intelligence (EI) characteristics of individual interpersonal skills are predictive of the overall performance of teams. This paper describes an extension of a pilot study, which was undertaken to identify which EI main scales of students were linked to success in a team-based undergraduate construction...

Inherently, TRIZ is a systematic problem-solving technique that can integrate solution principles from archived patents. It requires representing the technical problem using a standard set of parameters, which are then used to associate design principles to the problem. In many cases, the technical problems are very complex in nature requiring many...

As the Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry embraces new ideas and new technologies, there is an escalated need for integration. Unfortunately, the incorporation of highly functional collaborative skills within a team-like framework is not often a specific focus in collegiate engineering classes. This contrasts with industry, w...

In most industrial systems, people not only work as individuals, but also a member of one or more teams. This research investigates the effect of human mental workload and metacognition between an individual and team-based dynamic control task. Although advanced technology provides the ability to develop more effective training approaches to inexpe...

Team performance is a growing area of interest in hierarchical organizations and related industries. This paper describes an extension of a pilot study, which was undertaken to identify which emotional intelligence (EI) subcategory traits of students were linked to success in a team-based undergraduate construction-engineering course, over a five-y...

As the Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry embraces new ideas, new technologies, high performance project outcomes, and green concepts, there is an escalated need for integration. Unfortunately, the incorporation of highly functional collaborative skills within a team-like framework is not often a specific focus in engineering...