PhD student Kevin Juang selected as best paper award finalist at the 55th Annual Meeting of the HFES

- October 10, 2011

Kevin Juang, a PhD student in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University, was selected as one of three finalists for the Alphonse Chapanis Student Paper Award at the recent Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) conference. Each finalist was invited to present his or her research at a special session in front of a panel of experts. The finalists were then recognized at the opening plenary with thousands in attendance. Kevin's paper received the highest reviews among all papers in the Computer Systems track.

Co-authored with Dr. Joel Greenstein, the paper was titled "Evaluating the Usability and Security of Input Masking Techniques." It examined existing methods of protecting the entry of sensitive data from attack, as well as a novel approach that Kevin developed. This new method, which works cleanly with the authentication systems and policies already in deployment today, was found to exhibit the highest level of both security and usability of all five tested.

Founded in 1957, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society is one of the world's largest and most prestigious professional organizations for human factors research. The 55th Annual Meeting was held on September 19-23, 2011, in Las Vegas.