Dr. Sara A. McComb, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 15th Annual Frontiers of Engineering Symposium Sept. 10-12 at the National Academies’ Beckman Center at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Sara A. McComb

McComb was one of 88 of the nation’s brightest young engineers selected to participate in the three-day event, which brings together engineers ages 30 through 45 from industry, government and academia who are doing cutting-edge engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines. The symposium will examine engineering tools for scientific discovery; engineering the health care delivery system; nano/micro photonics and new applications; and resilient and sustainable infrastructures. A featured speaker will be Bradford W. Parkinson, the Edward C. Wells Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Emeritus at Stanford University. Parkinson is credited with being the father of the Global Positioning System, and is a recipient of the prestigious Draper Prize and a member of the NAE.

McComb joined the Texas A&M Engineering faculty in September 2008. She previously was with General Motors, Purdue University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. In 2001, she received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She is a member of the Academy of Management (AOM); Alpha Pi Mu, the Industrial Engineering Honor Society; American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE); Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE); and Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

McComb’s research areas of interest are in exploring team-level cognition by capturing individually held mental models, the mental model convergence process among team members, and the impact of mental models on team performance; studying collaboration among healthcare professionals and its impact on patient care, with the intent to fundamentally change the way resident training in conducted; and devising productivity enhancing strategies and tools that reduce the inherent uncertainty experienced by project teams, by examining project team design, team communication, organizational context, project complexity, and human-system interactions.

A licensed professional engineer in Michigan, McComb holds a bachelor’s degree from GMI Engineering & Management Institute and a master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She earned a Ph.D. in from Purdue University.

The National Academy of Engineering is an independent, nonprofit institution that serves as an adviser to government and the public on issues in engineering and technology. Its members consist of the nation’s premier engineers, who are elected by their peers for their distinguished achievements. Established in 1964, NAE operates under the congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

A meeting program and more information about Frontiers of Engineering are available at http://www.nae.edu/frontiers.

Written by Lesley V. Kriewald, lesleyk@tamu.edu

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