Monifa Vaughn-Cooke

Position Responsibilities

Dr. Vaughn-Cooke supports programmatic and graduate curriculum development in the Department of Health Systems and Implementation Science and contributes to the Health System Science and Interprofessional Practice track within VTCSOM. In addition, she supports growth of federally funded systems engineering and human factors research with the Department of Health Systems and Implementation Science.

Professional Background

Dr. Vaughn-Cooke joined VTCSOM in 2023. Prior to that, she held a faculty appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland. She received her doctorate in Industrial Engineering with a focus on human factors applied to healthcare. Her diverse background in Biomedical Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, and Industrial and Systems Engineering provides a unique perspective on how risk propagates through healthcare systems, the system inputs, and the impact on stakeholders. This perspective has been applied extensively to funded research and the development of curriculum at the graduate and undergraduate level.

Research Interests

Dr. Vaughn-Cooke’s interdisciplinary research synthesizes cognitive psychology, systems engineering, and risk assessment. Her research aims to identify the behavioral mechanisms associated with system risk propagation to inform the design of user-centered products and systems in high-risk user populations. This involves: 1) Behavioral and cognitive modeling of human performance; 2) Empirical data collection of human response (neurophysiological and subjective feedback) in extended reality and physical environments; and 3) Computational modeling to identify and mitigate design-related sources of human error. Dr. Vaughn-Cooke’s research has been applied to the design of patient self-management technologies to support chronic disease and addiction treatment, the development of digital health design guidelines for high-risk patients with physical and cognitive limitations, and the design of systems to reduce health care provider cognitive workload.

Education and Training

• PhD, Industrial Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, State College, United States
• MS, Industrial and Systems Engineering, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, United States
• BS, Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, United States