UB alumna Kay Stanney elected to National Academy of Engineering

by Nicole Capozziello

Stanney was inducted based on her contributions to “human factors engineering through virtual reality technology and strategic leadership.” Stanney’s company, Design Interactive Inc. in Orlando, Fla., is a woman-owned small business specializing in human systems integration and committed to developing innovative solutions that accelerate human performance.

For over two decades, Design Interactive (DI) has remained on the cutting edge of solving pressing human performance challenges for customers across the DoD, Federal, and commercial markets. DI’s award-winning, engaging augmented and virtual reality training solutions ultimately improve business processes, advance public safety and empower consumers.

The impact of Design Interactive's work is far-reaching, from leveraging technology to help individuals manage anxiety to improving drone pilot performance using an augmented reality command and control system. DI’s work has also led to the development of industry best practices to support the proliferation of virtual and augmented reality technologies.

“Our faculty and students are all very happy for Kay and as a member of the human factors community, I am especially pleased that her leadership and contributions to advancing virtual and augmented reality have been acknowledged with such a prestigious honor. Her successful election to the Academy is a significant event for the entire human factors profession!” says Victor Paquet, professor and chair of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Election to the academy is among the highest professional distinctions an engineer can receive.

NAE members include Nobel laureates, presidents and senior leaders of research universities, and recipients of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the U.S. National Medal of Science.

“I am very impressed by Kay’s numerous accomplishments, and tremendously heartened that one of the very few women in the NAE is a UB graduate,” says Liesl Folks, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Stanney attended UB from 1981 to 1986, graduating with a BS in industrial engineering.

“One of the things I treasure most about my time at UB was the significant number of women studying engineering alongside me, including my three college roommates,” says Stanney. “Given that even today only about 20% of undergraduate engineering students are female, it seems UB was ahead of its time in encouraging women to pursue a STEM career that fuels our country's innovation and technological advancement. I am very proud to be a UB ISE alumni.”

After graduating from UB, Stanney worked for Intel Corporation as a manufacturing/quality engineer. She went on to earn an MS and PhD in industrial engineering, with a focus on human factors engineering, from Purdue University in 1992.

From 1992 to 2008, Stanney served as a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Central Florida, during which time she won both the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.

Stanney founded Design Interactive Inc. in 1998. In 2018, DI was awarded the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Small Business Achievement Award for the quality of work done in support of DHS. DI was recognized for its quality work developing the Pat-Down Accuracy Training Tool (PATT), utilized by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2019.