My research has a strong applied focus and is often conducted in close collaboration with stakeholders in healthcare, disaster medicine, total defence, international partnerships, and societal safety.
Cognitive science in practice
My research explores how people, organisations, and technical systems interact in complex and safety-critical contexts. The focus is on crisis management, collaboration, and decision-making: from planning and training to the management of real-world societal disruptions. A central component is combining studies of practice with the development and evaluation of simulations, exercises, and serious games to systematically strengthen individual and organisational capabilities.I approach these questions from a cognitive science perspective, in close integration with human factors and sociotechnical systems perspectives, to understand how people make sense of situations, coordinate actions, and make decisions under uncertainty and time pressure.
A key focus is how to develop:
- crisis management, collaboration, and leadership
- training, simulation, and evaluation as learning tools
- decision-making and shared situational awareness
- interaction between people, technology, and organisation
From exercise to system capability
A significant part of my research examines how simulation-based exercises can be used to develop capabilities in healthcare, disaster medicine, and societal safety. I study how exercises can support learning at multiple levels—individual, team, organisation, and system—and how collaboration between different actors can be trained and evaluated.
From individual to system
Outcomes in crisis management are not determined solely by individual decisions, but by how people, technology, and organisations interact. I therefore study crisis management and preparedness as sociotechnical systems—from individual sensemaking to strategic leadership and international partnerships. A particular interest is international capacity building, including Train-the-Trainer models and long-term organisational learning.
