Dr. Hanna Haponenko graduated with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology (human cognition) from McMaster University, in 2022. During her Ph.D., Hanna developed and marketed a facial gesture recognition driver assistance system used by drivers with disabilities, to activate functions like windshield wipers and turn signals, with simple facial expressions. She is currently working at the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC) as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, developing virtual reality and mobile apps for the smart mobility sector.
Today, Hanna is most passionate about collecting and analyzing human behavioural data to learn how to increase trust between humans and autonomous vehicles, through the development of effective human machine interfaces. Her mission at MARC is to pique people’s interests about design and human factors research, interact with an interdisciplinary group of researchers, developers, and engineers, and get everyone’s mental gears turning about how we as a collective can work towards making our roads safer and more connected for the future.
