CHALFONT, PA, August 27, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Robert J. Wherry Jr., PhD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Wherry celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Dr. Wherry spent 20 years as an officer in the United States Navy, rising to the rank of commander before his retirement in 1976. He began his career by pursuing an education at the Ohio State University in Columbus, where he first earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1955. From 1956 to 1958 he served as a Line officer on the U.S.S. Strong before transferring to the Allied Sciences Section of the Medical Service Corps as an Aerospace Experimental Psychologist.
From 1958 to 1961 he served as a research psychologist at the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Florida and while there completed his Master of Arts in psychology in 1960. He was instrumental in acquiring the School's first digital computer for accomplishing research, and developed a protocol for predicting the success of student pilots and flight officers for which, in 1964, he received a Presidential Citation for its saving the Navy's flight training program several million dollars.
In 1961 the Navy sent him back to Ohio State University where, in one year, he completed all course requirements for his Doctor of Philosophy in industrial psychology, with a minor in statistics. His dissertation was written and approved and he received his degree in 1964.
From 1962 to 1966 he served as the senior aerospace experimental psychologist at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola, Florida. While there, he directed the training of new aerospace experimental psychologists, and instituted their going through both basic ground school and flight training. He acted as head of biostatistics and developed plans for on-line computer testing booths to study dynamic information processing needed by pilots and flight officers. He developed a theory of how anticipatory physical threat stress interferes with information processing as the perceived probability, proximity, and extent of the threat increases which was validated in a series of studies for which he won the 1965 Henry A Imus Award for the Best Military Research from the American Psychological Association.
From 1966 to 1970 he served as head of the human engineering branch of the Naval Missile Center in Point Mugu, California, overseeing a team of 18 human engineers. He began development of the Human Operator Simulator (HOS) program for simulating the hardware, software and human components of new aircraft systems flying against hostile forces. HOS could be used to evaluate layout of displays and controls, determine if the operator can complete all his tasks, and to predict their overall performance. He served as head of a team for the Chief of Naval Operations to audit human engineering deficiencies on four aircraft carriers. For HOS and other work he received the Pacific Missile Range Command's Outstanding Professional Employee in 1969.
From 1970 until 1976, Dr. Wherry headed the human factors division at the Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, Pennsylvania. He continued development of HOS and also developed new computer programs to: (1) determine how much panel space each display and control deserved based on the criticality, usage frequency, and amount of information being transferred between the operator and the machine; (2) optimize the arrangement of displays and controls on panels and consoles; (3) use rules to form the best abbreviations for labels when panel space is limited; and (4) demonstrate how direct communication could be implemented between humans and machines using voice recognition and voice synthesis.
After retirement from the Navy, he over 25 years was the proprietor and chief scientist of the Robert J. Wherry, Jr. Co. in Chalfont. During those years, he worked on contracts for, and consultant to the Navy, Army, Air Force, NASA, FAA, AT&T, and the Canadian Armed Forces. In addition to continuing revisions to HOS, he also developed his theory of Underlying Internal Processes and did studies to show how factor analyses of performance data (both accuracy and time) can be used to identify independent perceptual and cognitive processes and determine the average time it takes to accomplish each type of process. He developed the Random Sampling of Domain Variance method to control a large number of discrete or continuous variables as an alternative to Analysis of Variance. He also showed how a unique combination of Canonical Analysis and Hierarchical Factor Analysis could be used to analyze Multi- Task and Multi-Criteria studies to identify independent factors that (a) impact more than one task, (b) account for speed, (c) account for accuracy, (d) account for speed accuracy trade-offs, etc.
Throughout his career, Dr. Wherry has lent his expertise to many professional organizations, serving as a member of the editorial boards of Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes, from 1964 to 1984, and Human Factors and Ergonomics, from 1995 to 1999, and the National Research Council's Panel on Human Performance Modeling in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1987. He has served on the executive boards and as president of both the West Florida chapter of the American Psychological Association and the Delaware Valley Chapter of Human Factors & Ergonomics Society. Furthermore, he has been invited to address the American Psychological Association, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Human Factors & Ergonomics Society, and NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development. Dr. Wherry also taught graduate level statistics courses for engineers as an adjunct professor for the University of Florida and Florida State University.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Wherry has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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