Antonella Pavese's Resume

Professional Profile

• Theoretical knowledge and practical experience of human factors and web usability methodologies. Ten years of experience studying the human information processing and conducting experimental research on human behavior.
• Extensive experience in leading and coordinating usability activities (user research, heuristic evaluations, and usability tests) for large design projects.
• Excellent problem-solving abilities, critical thinking and record of initiating and completing long-term projects.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills. Extensive public speaking experience to both scientific and lay audiences. Extensive experience in writing professional reports as well as scientific papers.
• Extensive experience in managing people and projects.
• Fluent in English and Italian.

Work History

Web Usability Manager, April 2002 - present
The Vanguard Group, Inc., Malvern, PA

• Managed the Web Usability team during design of several large internal and external applications.
• Promoted the use of appropriate and current methodologies for each phase of the design process:
  • Contextual inquiries, users' interviews and surveys to collect user information used to create user profiles and personas, user goals, and scenarios;
  • Use of personas and scenarios for heuristic evaluations and rigorous user testing at different phases of design to evaluate the design and provide recommendations for improvement;
  • Performance modeling and efficiency studies to collect predicted and actual performance data; this information has been used to improve the design and evaluate new UIs for efficiency.
• Collaborated and supervised the work of external consultants.
• Actively contributed to internal process improvement following the six-sigma methodology.

Web Usability Engineer, August 2000 - March 2002
The Vanguard Group, Inc., Malvern, PA

• Planned and implemented user research during visioning and planning phases of website redesign projects. Developed user profile and personas on the basis of user interviews, demographic data, and user feedback.
• Worked as integral part of the design team. Helped integrating business goals, user goals, and findings from user research in the design strategy.
• Determined appropriate usability methodologies, conducted usability testing, documented and summarized findings, and reported results to management and project teams. Identified, prioritized, and tracked usability issues and made design recommendations.
• Promoted the principles of user-centered design with business and design team.

Post-doctoral Fellow, October 1998-July 2000
Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA

• Principal investigator in a research project on attention and memory functions in normal and brain injury populations. Collaborated to research projects on object perception, visual cognition, and the effects of visual affordances on action selection.

Research Fellow, August 1994-September 1998
University of Oregon, Department of Psychology, Eugene, OR

• Coordinated research projects involving normal and traumatic brain injury populations in attention and language. Trained in high-density EEG recording and data analysis.
• Coordinated and trained group of undergraduate research assistants. Summarized results of research in audio-visual presentations and written reports.

Adjunct professor, March-June 1998
University of Oregon, Department of Psychology, Eugene, OR

• Taught course on Cognition (PSY 435-545). Created web site and e-mail list for the class. The class web site can be found at: http://geocities.datacellar.net/pavesina/cog435/index.html

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, June 1997
University of Padua, Department of Psychology, Padua, Italy
Cognitive and Experimental Psychology

Laurea in Psychology, July 1991
University of Padua, Department of Psychology, Padua, Italy
Graduated Cum Laude (110/110)

Selected Publications

Pavese, A., & Buxbaum, L., (2002). Action matters: The role of action plans and object affordances in selection for action, Visual Cognition, 9(4), 559-590.
View/Download PDF file (496kb)

Sohlberg, M. M., McLaughlin, K., Pavese, A., & Heidrich, A., & Posner, M. I. (2000), Rehabilitation of attention disorders with Attention Process Therapy, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 22(5), 656-76.
View/Download PDF file (156kb)

Pavese, A. & Umiltà, C. (1998). Symbolic distance between numerosity and identity modulates Stroop interference, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24(5), 1535-1545.
View/Download PDF file (64kb)

Posner, M. I. & Pavese, A. (1998). Anatomy of word and sentence meaning, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95(3), 800-905.
View/Download PDF file (240kb)

Angrilli, A., Cherubini, P., Pavese, A., & Manfredini, S. (1997). The influence of affective factors on time perception, Perception & Psychophysics, 59(6), 972-982.
View/Download PDF file (56kb)

For a complete list of publications see my Vita

References Available upon Request