Lurker for many years, I've decided to join up to be more involved in what up until now has been one of the more interested RSS feeds. These days I'm onto my second career as a cognitive scientist and work for a research organisation. In a previous life I have worked as an engineer, mechanical, electrical and robotics, as well as setting up a dotcom which did some work in the VR area. I have worked with computers daily for over 30 years in various forms although these days I don't do any development or programming.
The change in careers was brought about by an increasing interest in human perception and decision making and I was lucky enough to go back to Uni in my 40's and complete a Masters majoring in cognitive science without going insane (and without an undergraduate degree in psychology). I did this while being the manager for a virtual reality research lab. Doing a degree a second time around is so much easier when it's more like a graded hobby and the reading and assignment material is basically what you be reading anyway!
My research these days is centered around decision making and cognitive biases and I work in researching how these fields affect my groups clients. This involves developing judgment and decision making analysis tools, investigating the impact of cognitive biases on planning processes and some work on human factors with regards to software. Unfortunately I can't talk in detail about much of my day work due to who my employer is however when it comes to the general field there's no problem there.
I have also been involved in the skeptics community for a few decades although these days I tend to channel my energy here into part time volunteer teaching of science, creative and critical thinking in primary schools.
Lurker for many years, I've decided to join up to be more involved in what up until now has been one of the more interested RSS feeds. These days I'm onto my second career as a cognitive scientist and work for a research organisation. In a previous life I have worked as an engineer, mechanical, electrical and robotics, as well as setting up a dotcom which did some work in the VR area. I have worked with computers daily for over 30 years in various forms although these days I don't do any development or programming. The change in careers was brought about by an increasing interest in human perception and decision making and I was lucky enough to go back to Uni in my 40's and complete a Masters majoring in cognitive science without going insane (and without an undergraduate degree in psychology). I did this while being the manager for a virtual reality research lab. Doing a degree a second time around is so much easier when it's more like a graded hobby and the reading and assignment material is basically what you be reading anyway! My research these days is centered around decision making and cognitive biases and I work in researching how these fields affect my groups clients. This involves developing judgment and decision making analysis tools, investigating the impact of cognitive biases on planning processes and some work on human factors with regards to software. Unfortunately I can't talk in detail about much of my day work due to who my employer is however when it comes to the general field there's no problem there. I have also been involved in the skeptics community for a few decades although these days I tend to channel my energy here into part time volunteer teaching of science, creative and critical thinking in primary schools.
Kind regards to all.