Sara Lu Riggs

Sara Lu Riggs is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia, based in Olsson Hall with a dedicated lab in Olsson Hall 002A. Her research focuses on human factors in complex environments, including aviation, healthcare, and manufacturing, addressing challenges like task sharing, attention management, and interruption management through cognitive ergonomics and systems engineering. She explores multimodal displays to mitigate data overload, adaptive interfaces responsive to user needs, and cognitive limitations such as change blindness.

Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and NIH, totaling over $6 million in grants. Notable achievements include the NSF CAREER Award and the 2016 APA Briggs Dissertation Award. Recent research emphasizes tactile displays, real-time gaze sharing in UAV teams, and AI-driven decision support systems. Her lab develops tools like the MoiréTag for tangible interactions and GUIs to streamline eye-tracking data analysis.

Key contributions include advancing adaptive display designs, quantifying collaborative strategies in UAV operations, and improving healthcare workflows through human-centric technologies. She actively investigates how workload transitions affect team performance and situational awareness, with applications in both industrial and medical settings.