HFES webinars provide continuing education on a variety of topics and domains aligned with the interest areas of our technical groups. HFES webinars provide insights into the latest HF/E research and innovations. Our next webinars are listed below.
Upcoming Webinars
ACTG Webinar: Teaching LLMs to See, Hear, and Respond: A Technical Framework for Situation Awareness
sponsored by ACTG
November 6, 2025 11:00 AM ET
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in domain knowledge, contextual understanding, and reasoning—often matching or surpassing human experts. But can they achieve true situation awareness comparable to humans? This webinar explores the technical requirements and architecture needed for LLMs to develop comprehensive situation awareness. We'll examine five critical components:
- Accuracy of general and domain-specific knowledge
- Environmental perception (audio/visual processing of human participants)
- System state awareness (real-time data integration)
- Agency and environmental interaction
- Advanced reasoning capabilities
Through a practical use case, I'll demonstrate how an LLM agent can observe simulator training sessions and provide detailed qualitative feedback. By the end of this session, participants will understand the current state-of-the-art in deploying LLM agents for simulator studies and gain practical insights for implementing similar approaches in their own domains.
Register Today
Speakers:
Michael Hildebrandt, Institute for Energy Technology
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Michael Hildebrandt is a senior Human Factors researcher at the Institute for Energy Technology in Norway where he leads the Biometrics Lab and Human-AI Lab.
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HCTG, HFTH and SSE Joint Webinar: Connecting Human Factors/Ergonomics Theory with Applications in Health Care: Physical Ergonomics and Exoskeletons in Surgery
sponsored by HCTG, HFTH and SSE
November 21, 2025 1:00pm ET
This webinar is the second an educational series co-hosted by the HFES Health Care Technical Group and Human Factors Transforming Healthcare Network, with guest co-sponsor Society of Surgical Ergonomics, connecting human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) theories with applications in health care delivery. This series aims overall to increase access to education about HF/E in health care, targeting HF/E learners (e.g., undergraduate and graduate students), HF/E academics, HF/E Practitioners, clinicians (both practicing and in training), patient safety and quality specialists, and health care administrators.
This webinar will focus on physical ergonomics in the operating room. Dr. M. Susan Hallbeck and Dr. Jackie Cha will give a general overview of physical ergonomics in surgery, including sharing experiences pragmatics of how to conduct research and applied efforts to improve ergonomics in surgery. They will then share case studies of exoskeletons in surgery and will be joined by the current president of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics, Dr. Philip Haigh, a surgical oncologist who uses an exoskeleton in his practice, to share his experience as well. We will conclude with an opportunity for questions, answers, and discussion.
Learnings:
- Seminal physical ergonomics models, theories and frameworks
- Practical translation and application to surgical settings
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Speakers:
M. Susan Hallbeck, PhD, PE, CPE, Mayo Clinic
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Dr. Susan Hallbeck is the Scientific Director of Human Factors Engineering in Mayo Clinic’s Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Healthcare Delivery. She is Professor of Health Care Systems Engineering, Consultant in Health Care Delivery Research and Consultant in Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Hallbeck is past president of both the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and the Society for Surgical Ergonomics. She is a licensed professional engineer and a certified professional ergonomist. Dr. Hallbeck is an HFES Fellow and International Ergonomics Association Fellow. She won the Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award in 2025.
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Jackie Cha, PhD, CPE, University of Wisconsin
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Jackie Cha, PhD CPE is the Patricia Flatley Brennan Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin (UW) – Madison. Her research focuses on measuring physical human-robot interactions, particularly in healthcare environments, to improve worker performance, safety, and system efficiency. Specifically, her team investigates applications of robotics – both surgical robotic systems and wearables – in clinical environments and the changes of physical and cognitive interactions between human teams and robots. |
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Philip Haigh, MD, Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center
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Philip Haigh, MD, is an endocrine and oncologic surgeon at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center (KP-LAMC), and a clinical professor at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J Tyson School of Medicine. He is a regional resource within the Southern California Permanente Medical Group for treating patients with complicated thyroid, parathyroid disease, and sarcoma. His research interests are primarily on population studies on primary hyperparathyroidism and thyroid disease, and more recently in surgical ergonomics, particularly MSK pain in surgeons. He was a founding member and the first treasurer, and is currently the president of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics. |
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Moderators:
David Neyens, PhD, MPH, Clemson University
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David Neyens, PhD MPH is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Bioengineering at Clemson University. He is the Associate Director of the Human Factors Institute at Clemson and is a faculty scholar within the Clemson University School of Health Research. Dr. Neyens is the Vice Chair of the HFES Healthcare TG. |
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Brittany Anderson-Montoya, PhD, Teladoc
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Brittany L. Anderson-Montoya is the Lead Human Factors Specialist for Teladoc Health’s Patient Safety Team. Brittany received her PhD in Human Factors Psychology from Old Dominion University in 2014. Previously, she led the development of the Human Factors Program for Atrium Health, where she worked to develop a human factors approach for Root Cause Analysis, a human factors product framework, and a framework for executing applied human factors work to support patient safety. |
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Past Webinar Recordings
Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group Webinar: From Student to Practitioner: Exploring Careers in Occupational Ergonomics (Part 3)
Original Air Date: September 18, 2025
Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group Webinar: From Student to Professor: Exploring Careers in Occupational Ergonomics (Part 2)
Original Air Date: September 16, 2025
Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group Webinar: Interdisciplinary Insights: Exploring Careers in Occupational Ergonomics (Part 1)
Original Air Date: September 11, 2025
Sustainability Technical Group Webinar: Human Factors in Sustainable Supply Chain
Original Air Date: September 10, 2025
Training Technical Group and Extended Reality Technical Group Webinar: Innovative Training Approaches to Evaluate and Enhance Human Performance
Original Air Date: August 13, 2025
Aerospace Systems Technical Group Webinar: Applying Human Factors Analysis in Designing Accessible Lavatories on Single-Aisle Aircraft
Original Air Date: August 13, 2025
HFES Perception and Performance Technical Group Webinar: Eye Tracking: How to Capture and Interpret User’s Point of View and Operator’s Gaze Strategies
Original Air Date: June 11, 2025
Interested in Hosting a Webinar?
Our webinars are delivered by subject matter experts, including HFES award winners, recent authors in Society publications, high-profile members and others conducting research or practice in key topical areas.
If you are interested in submitting a topic for consideration, please complete the submission form for the Webinar Committee's review.
Webinar Proposal Submission Form