Hello world!

Welcome to my (Thomas Lenz's) personal website!

Bio

Tommy in front of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis in 2023.

I am a PhD student and research assistant in the Human Factors program in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Iowa State University, advised by Prof. Jundi Liu. I attained my BISyE in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, with a minor in Computer Science. I worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the Human Factors Safety Laboratory under the direction of Prof. Nichole Morris.

My research interests include human-AI trust and reliance; workload, situation awareness, and displays in surface transportation; and situation awareness and task structure in teleoperation.

I am interested in leveraging knowledge about human abilities and limitations and techniques from engineering and computer science to build technology and environments that suit the people who use them. Particularly, I am interested in how to measure hidden cognitive features like situation awareness, attention, and trust and how to apply this knowledge to design better tech.

Education

• PhD , Industrial Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction, Iowa State University, Expected 2029
• M.S., Industrial Engineering, Iowa State University, Expected Spring 2027
• B.I.Sy.E., Industrial Engineering, University of Minnesota, 2024