What Does It Mean to Be Inclusive?: A Conversation with the HFES Council of Affinity Groups (COAG)

Abstract

To truly design for people—addressing the full spectrum of human capacities and limitations—it is critical that the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) fosters a welcoming and inclusive environment for HF/E professionals and students of diverse backgrounds and experiences. It is essential that HFES, like any other organization, considers how its current structures fail to include people of historically excluded and/or minoritized identities. During this session, the leaders of HFES-sponsored affinity groups (AGs) and of the Council of Affinity Group (COAG) will share their perspectives on what “inclusion” means to them and provide practical insight into what it looks like in practice.

Introduction and Motivation

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HF/E) professionals are innately required to consider the differences and varying perspectives of their users and other stakeholders to jointly optimize system performance and the well-being of the people in the system. This is even more the case as HF/E tools are leveraged in increasingly diverse working populations, jobs, and environments. To truly design for people—addressing the full spectrum of human capacities and limitations—it is critical that HFES fosters a welcoming and inclusive environment for HF/E professionals and students of diverse backgrounds and experiences. It is essential that HFES, like any other organization, considers how its current structures fail to include people of historically excluded and/or minoritized identities.

The proposed panel, made up of the Chairs of the HFES Affinity Groups and the Council of Affinity Groups (COAG), will interact with the issue of making HFES more inclusive, with a special focus on the populations they represent. Session attendees will gain a better understanding of what is meant by “inclusion” and what it takes to be inclusive. The panel will build on previous years’ COAG conversations which have explored the perspectives of HF/E professionals of minoritized identities and invited participants to practice empathy and allyship (Bruni et al., 2023; Hughes et al., 2022).

Activities During This Panel

This highly interactive panel will be moderated by Dr. Hanna Barton (they/them) in their role as the Co-Chair of the COAG. They will open the session with a brief silent exercise inviting attendees to visualize (or reflect on) “inclusion” and upon completion of the exercise write down two or three things that stood out to them in their visualization.

The moderator will then ask each participant on the panel to introduce themselves and briefly share what inclusion means to them. As panelists are sharing, attendees will be invited to submit their reflections in an electronic format. Together, the moderator will review and highlight people’s reflections, inviting panelists to comment as they see fit. Then, the moderator will shift the conversation to exploring what inclusion looks like in practice by inviting the panelists to describe how their affinity group addresses inclusion and/or any inclusion needs that are specific to the populations they represent.

The conversation will be scoped to the professional environment to provide practical feedback for attendees to practice and implement in their own interpersonal relationships and organizations. During this section, attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions, which the moderator will filter for discussion by panelists. Each panelist will be provided the opportunity at the end of the session to share their one sentence takeaway and plug any upcoming events or activities.

Moderator

Dr. Hanna J. Barton (they/them) is a fierce advocate for minoritized communities, with lived experience at the intersection of queer, trans, and disabled identity. Currently serving as Co-Chair of the COAG, they are committed to making HFES a welcoming environment for all people. They have previously served as the Co-Chair of the LGBTQ+ AG from 2021 to 2023.

Invited Panelists

Dr. Myounghoon Jeon (Philart, he/him) is a Co-Chair for the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Affinity Group. He has been involved with this AG since its inception and became a Co-Chair with Ninica Howard in 2022. He also contributed to making a new Korean HFES Affinity Group and served as a past chair of K-HFES AG. He participated in the COAG Panel in HFES 2023.

Dr. Jules Trippe (they/them) is Community Engagement Chair for the Disability and Chronic Illness (DCI) Affinity Group. They have been involved with the AG since its inception in 2021. They also are COAG liaison with HFES’ DEI Committee, as well as a member and former Co-Chair of the LGBTQ+ AG since its inception in 2020. As one of the early AG leaders, Jules helped establish AGs in HFES as a home for marginalized members as well as a conduit for feedback (via COAG and DEI Committee) to the Executive Council and the membership at large.

Myke C. Cohen is an Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Dean’s Fellow and PhD student in Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University and an Associate Research Engineer at Aptima, Inc. His research focuses on observation-based and unobtrusive methods for measuring joint decision-making, trust, anthropomorphism, and team workload across sociotechnical systems. He holds an M.S. in Human Systems Engineering from Arizona State University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Myke serves as Co-Chair of the LGBTQ+ AG.

Dr. Jeong Ho (Jay) Kim (he/him) is a founding member of HFES Affinity Group and previously served as a treasurer of this AG. He has been involved with the AG since its establishment in 2019. He has been serving as the current chair of K-HFES AG since 2023 with a main goal of stimulating creative ideas and opening up new opportunities for us to collaborate among our members, thereby allowing us to make increasingly valuable contributions to the diverse spheres of HFE.

Dr. Abigail R. Wooldridge has served on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee of HFES since it transitioned to a committee from a task force in 2016 (Chiou et al., 2017), serving as chair from 2021 to 2023. The DEI Committee is separate from the COAG, but works with the COAG to try to ensure that HFES is a diverse, welcoming and inclusive society in addition to supporting HF/E work related to DEI. While chairing that committee, she attended COAG meetings to coordinate efforts between the COAG and the DEI Committee, as well as tried to create the structure to support sustained coordination across leadership turnover.

Dr. Heather C. Lum currently serves as Co-Chair of the COAG and the president of the HF/E Women’s Organization for Mentoring and Networking (HFE WOMAN). She has served HFE WOMAN as the events chair and led important discussions about gender bias in our field (Lum et al., 2022).