Reviewer Resources

Please review our reviewer resources to help you prepare for your session at ASPIRE. Questions should be addressed to the HFES Education team at education@hfes.org.

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Important Dates:

    •  
  • Friday, March 7, 2026 - Step 1 (Extended Abstracts) review assignments finalized
  • Monday, March 10, 2026 - Notification to reviewers by email - begin reviews
  • Thursday, April 3, 2026 - Step 1 (Extended Abstracts) reviews due 
  • Monday, May 5, 2026 - Step 2 (draft papers for publication) submissions due
  • Thursday, May 8, 2026 - Step 2 (draft papers for publication) review assignments open
  • Wednesday, May 21, 2026 - Step 2 (draft papers for publication) reviews due

All the above deadlines are due at 11:59 PM Eastern.

Note: Papers cannot be submitted for publication without first completing the Step 2 review stage.

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Reviewer Responsibilities

  • Maintaining Quality and Integrity: Reviewers ensure the conference's technical content is high quality and maintains academic integrity through careful evaluation.
  • Constructive Feedback Delivery: Providing detailed, clear, and actionable feedback helps authors improve their submissions effectively and fairly.
  • Fair and Evidence-Based Evaluation: Reviews focus on submitted content with evidence-based criteria to ensure fairness and impartiality in acceptance decisions.
  • Ethical and Professional Conduct: Reviewers uphold ethical standards by avoiding AI-generated reviews and completing evaluations timely and professionally.

Reviewer Guides and Instructions

Our ASPIRE Reviewer Guide is available to offer detailed advice and best practices for how to create and submit your reviews.

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Review Stages

Step 1

ASPIRE employs a two-step submission process, first for presentation at the conference and then for publication in the conference proceedings. The first step requires an extended abstract for most submission types. Acceptance at this stage grants authors the opportunity to present at ASPIRE.

Step 1: Extended Abstract (≤2 pages)

  • All submitters start here with an extended abstract of up to 2 pages.
  • Purpose of the review: Decide if this work belongs at the conference.
  • Focus on:
    • Relevance to HFES and the Technical Group for which you are reviewing
    • Clarity of the problem and contribution
    • Soundness (not perfection)
    • Likely interest to attendees
  • In Step 1, you should not expect exhaustive lit reviews, citations, methodology, or results.

Step 2: Optional: Extended Abstract or Full Paper (≤5 pages)

  • Authors whose submissions were accepted at Step 1 may optionally decide to submit to the Proceedings, for which a second peer-review occurs, either on an updated version of the extended abstract or a full paper up to 5 pages.
  • Purpose of this review: Decide if this work belongs in the proceedings.
  • For Step 2 extended abstracts, focus on:
    • Updates to the submission that address Step 1 feedback
  • For Step 2 full papers, focus on:
    • Technical rigor and methodological clarity
    • Strength of evidence and analysis
    • Quality of writing and structure
    • Whether conclusions follow from results
  • In Step 2, the bar for rejection should be high (very hard to do):
  • Only reject extended abstracts for publications if the recommendations from Step 1 were not followed or if the Step 2 submission is vastly different from Step 1.
  • Only reject full papers if the core standards for publications are not met (massive rigor or methodology gap not identified in Step 1, very poor writing quality or structure flow, vast difference between the Step 1 and Step 2 submissions).

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Submitter Templates:

These are for your reference only to assist with your review process.

Final Publication Paper Formatting Requirements

  • You must use the Final Publication Proceedings Paper template or the Final Publication Extended Abstract template.
  • In addition to utilizing the appropriate template, the following guidelines must be followed:
    • Papers can be five (5) formatted pages, including all figures, tables, images, charts, references, and acknowledgments.
    • Extended Abstracts can be two (2) formatted pages, including all figures, tables, images, charts, references, and acknowledgments.
    • Titles, keywords, and abstracts must be included in the manuscript file to ensure discoverability through online search engines, such as Google.
    • Author information, including names, affiliations, sequence, and contact details, should be accurately listed in the manuscript file.
      • Papers missing the author block will be rejected and returned to the author(s) for correction, which could result in delayed publishing.
    • Each article should contain a Declaration of Conflicting Interests and Funding section, as per the COPE Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (2003).
    • Tables and figures must be uploaded separately from the main document using the appropriate file type.
    • Figure titles and captions should not be included within images, as they may not scale appropriately.
    • Tables should be formatted using Microsoft Word or Excel, while figures created by authors should be submitted in their original file formats (e.g., Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint). Images should be in TIFF format with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI.
    • All Tables and Figures in the article should be appropriately cited in the text, i.e., in-text citations of all Tables and Figures are required in the main article text.
    • References and their in-text citations should adhere to APA formatting guidelines.
  • Papers that do not meet the above-outlined guidelines may be rejected and returned to the author(s) for correction, which could delay publication. 
  • Any changes to a paper that has already been submitted must be routed to sagetracksupport@sagepub.com. HFES Education cannot make any changes to your paper on your behalf.

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Contact Information

For questions about your review assignments, please reach out to your TG Program Chair:

Technical Group Program Chair/Co-Chair Contact Information
Aerospace Systems Rodrigo Lopes / Steve Cauffman rlopesrose at beta.team / sjcauffman at gmail.com
Age and Ability Gaojian Huang / Zeinab Kazemi gaojian.huang at sjsu.edu / zkazemi at clemson.edu
Augmented Cognition Shuchi Deb / HeeSun Choi shuchi.deb at uta.edu / heesun.choi at ttu.edu
Cognitive Engineering & Decision Making          Joseph Manganelli / Jad Atweh jmanganelli at xplrdesignllc.com / jad.atweh at ufl.edu
Communications Barbara Millet bmillet at gmail.com
Cybersecurity Palvi Aggarwal paggarwal at utep.edu
Education Carolyn Sommerich sommerich.1 at osu.edu
Environmental Design Kaitlin Gallagher kmg014 at uark.edu
Extended Reality Hy Kim / Shafiqul Islam hyungil at uic.edu / shafiqul at illinois.edu
Forensics Professional Lynda Bottos jetlagahp at gmail.com
General Sessions Sylvain Bruni sbruni at aptima.com
Health Care Vickie Nguyen / Reid Parks vickie.nguyen at gmail.com / rkparks at iu.edu
Human AI Robot Teaming (AI) X. Jessie Yang / Mengyao Li xijyang at umich.edu / mengyao.li at gatech.edu
Human Performance Modeling Pratima Saravanan pratima.saravanan at okstate.edu / 
Individual Differences in Performance James Szalma james.szalma at ucf.edu
Macroergonomics Jordan Hill jrh6 at iu.edu
Occupational Ergonomics Jay Kim / Rong Huangfu jay.kim at tamu.edu / rong.hfu at outlook.com
Perception and Performance Maya Luster maya.s.luster at gmail.com
Product Design Kim Hallett khallett603 at gmail.com
Safety Chris Mayhorn / Raina Shah chris_mayhorn at ncsu.edu / rshah at appliedsafety.com
Student Forum Judi See jesee at sandia.gov
Surface Transportation Yiqi Zhang / Brandon Pitts zhangyiqi.psy at gmail.com / bjpitts at purdue.edu
Sustainability Tommy Tran / AJ Diokno tttran50 at asu.edu / ajd15 at rice.edu 
System Development JP Plummer / Nick Roome johnpaulplummer at gmail.com / roomenick at gmail.com
Training Megan Morris megan.b.morris at gmail.com
Usability and System Evaluation Jeremiah Still jstill at odu.edu
User Experience Andrea Johnson / Vickie Nguyen ajohn308 at spelman.edu / vickie.nguyen at gmail.com

For any questions on the submission system, please reach out to education@hfes.org. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who should I contact with additional questions

Please email education@hfes.org with your request.

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