Curriculum Vitea of Frances Mount

Education:

1993 University of Houston - PhD. Cognitive Psychology

1988 University of Houston - MA Cognitive Psychology

1975 University of Houston - BS Psychology

1974 University of Houston - BS Mathematics

1969 East Los Angeles Junior College - AA Mathematics

 

Carreer:

2005-present - Private Consulting

2002-2005 - National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI)/Baylor College of Medicine: Consultant to NASA-Johnson Space Center Life Sciences Directorate

1985-2001 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): Aerospace Engineer, NASA-Johnson Space Center

1983-1985 – Lockheed Corporation: Scientist/Engineer

1980-1983 – University of Houston, full-time student

1974-1980 – Lockheed Corporation: Systems Analyst

 

Experience:

Dr. Mount had extensive involvement in tasks covering Space Station Freedom (SSF), SpaceHab, Shuttle and also independent research in human factors related to spaceflight and to extreme and hermetic habitation. Under Space Station Freedom she served as subsystem manager for on-orbit maintenance and was the Division representative for space station viewing / window systems. During the planning and design years of Space Station Freedom Dr. Mount interacted continuously with representatives of the European Space Agency (ESA), Nippon Aerospace Development Agency (NASDA, now JAXA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to determine requirements, problems and areas of commonality in the topics of windows/viewing/maintenance and general human factors. Additionally, Dr. Mount worked with a NASA team to determine the optimum overall layout for the SSF habitation module.

As Subsystem Manager for SSF Crew Quarters, Dr. Mount developed early designs and concepts for the individual crew quarters and also spearheaded the development of programmatic requirements for this subsystem. She served a term as manager of the NASA-JSC Graphics Analysis Facility (GRAF), and helped to create the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) and the Workstation Evaluation and Ergonomics Laboratory (WEEL), now operating jointly as the Usability Test and Analysis Facility (UTAF).

Dr. Mount was Principal Investigator (PI) for DSO-904, Assessment of Human Factors, which was added to the FTSOD in 1991 to investigate Human Factors issues in a microgravity environment. This low-cost, low-maintenance project flew on nine (9) Shuttle flights with the goal of determining factors affecting crew timelines and productivity while on orbit and of comparing these observations with a 1-G control simulation. Collection of in-flight commentary included voice recording, video and questionnaire-based data tools; DSO-904 was last manifested under Dr. Mount’s direction on STS-88 and STS-90.

During the last year of Dr. Mount’s NASA civil service employment, she supported advanced Robotics development in the Engineering Directorate (ER) on a project to write and test electronic procedures and data tracking for flight medical teams including Bio-Medical Engineers.