Alex Kirlik is Professor in the Department of Computer Science with additional appointments in the Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and the Information Trust Institute. He previously served as acting head of Illinois's Human Factors program in the Institute of Aviation from 2006-2010. Alex earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial & Systems Engineering (Human-Machine Systems) at The Ohio State University. His Ph.D. thesis, "The organization of perception and action in complex control skills" earned the George Briggs Award from APA's Division of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychologists, as the best dissertation of the year. During his academic career, in addition to positions held with his home institutions at the University of Illinois (2002-date) and Georgia Tech (1989-2001), Alex has held visiting positions at Stanford University and NASA Ames Research Center (ASEE-NASA Stanford Summer Faculty Fellow, 1989, 1990), Yale University, Haskins Laboratory and the University of Connecticut (Visiting Scholar, 2001-02 academic year), Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA (Sabbatical Research, 2012-13 academic year), and the Liberty Mutual Institute for Safety (Visiting Scholar, summer 2015). Alex's research interests include human factors, human-computer interaction, visual analytics, human-robot interaction, social computing, human-automation interaction and decision support is safety critical systems such as aviation, space, intelligence analysis, severe weather forecasting, disaster and emergency response, and healthcare and medicine.