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The New Arms Race: Powering America's Digital Future

James Merlo, Ph.D.

North American Generator Forum

Electrical load growth in North America has been flat or relatively low in the past decade. The rapid need for more data centers and the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence have driven load growth to new levels, with demand predicted to exceed 50 Gigawatts by 2030. What are the human and organizational factors that got us here, and how can they help us make good decisions towards this future? Join us in a discussion of how we got there, and more importantly, what the way ahead looks like

Human Readiness as a Reliability Asset: Digital Health’s Role in Infrastructure Resilience

Matt Marrapode

You monitor your facilities in real time — but what about the people operating them? As extreme weather events and grid modernization accelerate workforce stress, the next generation of resilient infrastructure depends on monitoring both sides of the human-machine interface — because reliability isn't just about assets, it's about the people who build, maintain, and operate them.

Thinking Habits for Human Performance

Please join us for a conversation with Dr. Ey, as we explore how people think while work is unfolding under complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty, and constraint. The conversation will focus on thinking habits such as how situations are framed, how possible developments are anticipated, how understanding is coordinated across people, how trade-offs are managed, and how decisions are made with incomplete information. These habits can be learned and improved to support effective action in real Human Performance work.

Macrocognition for New Leaders in Nuclear Power Plants

The nuclear industry operates in a highly regulated, complex environment where even small mistakes can have serious consequences for safety, public perception, and regulatory compliance. First-Line Leaders—supervisors and managers new to leadership roles—play a pivotal part in mitigating operational risks and maintaining reliable plant performance. As these new leaders often make high-stakes decisions under time pressure, robust critical thinking and effective decision-making frameworks are crucial. We will explore Naturalistic Decision-Making (NDM) principles, macrocognition, High-Reliability Organization (HRO) theory, and the importance of psychological safety. We will also discuss how teamwork, accountability, transparency, continuous improvement, improved morale, and early error detection align with leadership development efforts, providing practical recommendations and concrete tables to guide implementation in nuclear facilities.

Operating through cyber compromise: A view from the control room (and how we might leverage HOP to do it!)

Like it or not (Sam does not like it, for the record) we live in a world with inescapable cyber risks from adversaries targeting our critical infrastructure. Thankfully, there is no shortage of efforts from cybersecurity professionals working to protect our digital systems and assets, but what happens if or when a cyber-attack compromises our ability to safely and reliably operate the grid? We’ve still got to operate through it, and two of the ways we’re building this capability is through a new idea we’re calling Cyber Conservative Operations, and through practice at exercises like the Department of Energy’s Liberty Eclipse series.

Join Sam for a discussion of these ideas and some of the work in progress to help the humans to keep the lights on in these infrequent but critical situations.

This is one you will not want to miss!

Building Trustworthy AI Teammates

To work in critical infrastructure, human experts must undergo rigorous certifications and training to ensure they operate in a high-reliability and trustworthy manner. As businesses consider using generative AI technologies in critical operations, these tools are increasingly becoming teammates to human experts. Why not ensure our digital teammates are also properly trained, certified, and trustworthy? Learn from Andy Bochman, an AI integration expert, about the TAIGR platform and the importance of trustworthy AI teammates.

How working with dogs has helped me be a better researcher, teacher, and person: Lessons Learned from being a search and rescue K9 handler

Dr. Heather C. Lum (she/her) is an assistant professor and director of the Virtual Environments & Cognitive Training Research (VECToR) laboratory at Arizona State University. She earned her Ph.D. in applied experimental and human factors psychology from the University of Central Florida in 2011. Her primary research interests focus on human-animal teams as a model for human-robot teaming. Dr. Lum conducted research on human-non-human teaming in the summer of 2023 as part of the U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program and will be returning to the Air Force Academy this summer to continue this work. 

In addition to her research pursuits, Dr. Lum is the current president of HF/E Women's Organization for Mentoring and Networking (HFE WOMAN) and former events chair. She is also a K9 handler and training coordinator for the Yavapai County Search and Rescue Team-Search Dog Unit and a trainer/evaluator for the National Association for Search and Rescue.

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Grid but You Didn’t Even Know to Ask!

Join us this afternoon to hear from John Moura of the North American Electric Reliability Organization. John will share all kinds of interesting facts about the nation's electric grid (both its technology and the humans who work so hard to maintain it), as well as give us a summary of the State of Reliability of the grid. John will shed insight on what you may or may not have known about the grid and its safe, secure, and reliable operation. This is one you will not want to miss!

Artificial (General) Intelligence, Neuroscience, and Human Performance

The growth of Generative AI in the past few years (then months, then weeks) has been astounding, and it's difficult to keep up with the changes. It's not just technology that's changing, though; it's also how we better understand human information processing, how these technologies do or don't work like our brains, and how they integrate into our lives and organizations in critical work. Mike will cover several recent developments in AI and some new challenges as these tools continue to advance.

Download the presentation here: AGI, Neuroscience, and HOP

Ergonomics, Physiology, and Injury Prevention

Dr. Reuben Burch, Associate Vice President of Research at Mississippi State University, will be sharing the story of how he and his team built the Athlete Engineering Institute. Based on guidance from strength coaches at the collegiate and professional level of sports and founded on human factors principles, Athlete Engineering is now aiding workforce preservation in advanced manufacturing across Mississippi. Attendees of this discussion will learn how the Athlete Engineering Institute supports the predictive and preventative maintenance of the human machine, the industrial athlete.

Effective Networking (Even for Introverts)

Rachel Williams, Tetra Tech

You do NOT have to be an extrovert to network. The thought of networking seems to scare a lot of people away... especially introverts.

The thought of mind-numbing small talk and sleazy selling sounds awful… to ANYONE!

What if you could think of networking from a completely different state of mind? What if it felt natural and smooth, whether you're an extrovert or introvert?

Attend this session to learn 5 amazing tools that are key to making networking easy and effective.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to calm any nerves you might have networking

  • Great ways to “break the ice”

  • What creates rapport and connection

  • How to communicate what you do

  • How to actually bring opportunities in

Improving Content Retention in Training and Learning

When building a training module or other learning opportunity, it's a challenge to ensure the content is retained long after the class ends, helping people operate safely and wisely into the future. Knowledge that fades quickly after a final exam or class is over doesn't benefit either the attendees who put in the time to participate or the managers and leaders who support those programs, targeting improvements that benefit individuals and the company.

Improving Human Performance in Energy

Riz and Mike will cover two documents that will be released this year. Both documents address key issues of our time in the energy sector, bringing together subject matter experts across the industry, evaluating current trends, and making recommendations for how we can set up our industry to be more reliable, safe, and successful, in a changing world.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Real-Time System Operations (NERC, led by ResilientGrid).

Human and Organizational Performance Improvement Manual (Department of Energy).