Tiash Rana Mukherjee has successfully defended her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, where she was co-advised by Dr. Prabhakar Pagilla and Dr. Ranjana Mehta. Her research brings user research and physiological measurement together to understand how people experience assistive and emerging technologies. She found that what the body registers and what people perceive do not always match, a gap that may influence whether people trust and keep using new technology. She has studied first responders in the field and adults of different ages and sexes in the lab, evaluating technologies designed to reduce physical strain in demanding work.

Her human factors internship at Merck deepened her appreciation for how much user safety depends on getting the details right. There she saw firsthand how careful user research shapes product design and regulatory decisions, and that experience continues to motivate her work. What excites Tiash most is the moment research meets the real world: watching how people adapt to a new tool over time, discovering why the same technology works well for one person and not another, and turning those insights into design decisions that keep workers and users safe. She is especially drawn to the idea that the body’s own signals could one day tell a system when someone is tiring or at risk, so technology can adapt to people rather than the other way around. She aims to help build technology that is evaluated with its users and designed so that measurable benefits are benefits people actually feel. The entire NeuroErgonomics Lab is proud of Tiash’s contributions to user-centered research and occupational safety, and we look forward to seeing where her research goes next.