J. Malcolm McCurry

About

J. Malcolm McCurry is a human-robot interaction researcher whose work spans supervisory control, situation awareness, and the psychological dimensions of human-robot relationships. His early contributions focused on the challenge of single-operator, multiple-robot systems, developing eye-movement-based theoretical models to understand how operators maintain situation awareness across robotic teams — work that collectively garnered nearly 100 citations. His 2014 model of Dynamic Operator Overload extended this line of inquiry by offering predictive tools for operator workload, building on foundational concepts like fan-out to better characterize human supervisory capacity. More recently, McCurry has turned toward the social and perceptual dimensions of human-robot interaction. His work on the perception of agency — including the development and psychometric validation of reduced measurement scales — addresses a significant gap in the field by establishing consistent methods for assessing how humans attribute agency to robots and AI. Complementing this, his research on fairness in human-robot teams, perceived danger, and the relationship between perceived agency and trust reveals a sustained commitment to understanding the psychological dynamics that shape effective collaboration. With citations spanning foundational systems engineering and emerging social robotics, McCurry's career reflects a thoughtful evolution from operational performance to the nuanced human factors that define trustworthy human-robot partnerships.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Single operator, multiple robots: an eye movement based theoretic model of operator situation awareness

   50 citations · 2010
2. 2
   Dynamic Operator Overload: A Model for Predicting Workload During Supervisory Control

   31 citations · 2014
3. 3
   Single operator, multiple robots: An eye movement based theoretic model of operator situation awareness

   24 citations · 2010
4. 4
   The Perception of Agency

   23 citations · 2024
5. 5
   Single operator, multiple robots

   23 citations · 2010
6. 6
   Unfair! Perceptions of Fairness in Human-Robot Teams

   11 citations · 2021
7. 7
   The Perception of Agency: Scale Reduction and Construct Validity*

   6 citations · 2023
8. 8
   Proxemic Reasoning for Group Approach

   5 citations · 2020
9. 9
   The Perceived Danger (PD) Scale: Development and Validation

   4 citations · 2025
10. 10
    The Relationship Between Perceived Agency and Trust in Robots

    1 citations · 2025

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links