Christopher McComb

About

Researcher and educator interested in sociotechnical systems, machine learning for engineering design, and human-AI teaming

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Engineering
• Knowledge management
• Data science
• Human–computer interaction
• Psychology
• Engineering management
• Systems engineering
• Computer Security

Selected publications

• Decoding the agility of artificial intelligence-assisted human design teams

  Design Studies · 2022 · 51 citations

  Although necessary for complex problem solving, such as engineering design, team agility is often difficult to achieve in practice. The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) affords unique opportunities for supporting team problem solving. While integrating assistive AI agents into human teams has at times improved team performance, it is still unclear if, how, and why AI affects team agility. A large-scale human experiment answers these questions, revealing that, with appropriately interfac…

  DOI

• Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and Engineering Design

  Journal of Mechanical Design · 2021 · 31 citations

  Artificial intelligence (AI) has had a strong presence in engineering design for decades, and while theory, methods, and tools for engineering design have advanced significantly during this time, many grand challenges remain. Modern advancements in AI, including new strategies for capturing, storing, and analyzing data, have the potential to revolutionize engineering design processes in a variety of ways. The purpose of this special issue is to consolidate recent research activities that utilize…

  DOI

• Using workplace thriving theory to investigate first‐year engineering students' abilities to thrive during the transition to online learning due to <scp>COVID</scp>‐19

  Journal of Engineering Education · 2022 · 24 citations

  Background: During the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, universities rapidly pivoted to online formats and were often unable to adhere to the best practices of online learning highlighted in prior literature. It is well documented that a variety of barriers impeded "normal" educational practices. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of first-year engineering students enrolled in an introductory engineering design course during the rapid transition to onlin…

  DOI

• FOCUS AND MODALITY: DEFINING A ROADMAP TO FUTURE AI-HUMAN TEAMING IN DESIGN

  Proceedings of the Design Society · 2023 · 20 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enables new ways to envision how computer tools will aid, work with, and even guide human teams. This paper explores this new paradigm of design by considering emerging variations of AI-Human collaboration: AI used as a design tool versus AI employed as a guide to human problem solvers, and AI agents which only react to their human counterparts versus AI agents which proactively identify and address needs. The diffe…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Modeling Human Behavior in Cyber-Physical-Social Infrastructure Systems

  2023 · 12 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The concept of cyber-physical-social infrastructure systems (CPSISs) has been introduced to offer a paradigm shift necessary for including human-centered, or “social,” objectives in traditional cyber-physical systems (CPSs). In this paper we focus on one of the greatest challenges of developing CPSISs: modeling and predicting human behavior. Traditional approaches like rule-based models (e.g., agent-based models) and stochastic methods fall short in capturing the complex, multi-objective, and dy…

  DOI

Recent grants

• Investigating the Effectiveness of Machine Learning Paradigms for Supporting Engineering Designers in Rapidly Evolving Digital Manufacturing

  NSF · $425k · 2018–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Jonathan Cagan

  Carnegie Mellon University

  72 shared

• Jessica Menold

  Park University

  70 shared

• Catherine Berdanier

  Purdue University System

  40 shared

• Kathryn Jablokow

  Pennsylvania State University

  37 shared

• Kenneth Kotovsky

  Carnegie Mellon University

  31 shared

• Nicolás F. Soria Zurita

  Pennsylvania State University

  26 shared

• Samuel Lapp

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  26 shared

• Nicholas A. Meisel

  Pennsylvania State University

  24 shared

Education

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

  Carnegie Mellon University

  2016

• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

  Carnegie Mellon University

  2014

• B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

  California State University, Fresno

  2012

• B.S. Civil Engineering, Civil Engineering

  California State University, Fresno

  2012

Awards & honors

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow

Similar researchers at Carnegie Mellon University

• Gregory Lowryh-116
• Hamish Gordonh-79
• Carmel Majidih-75