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April Savoy grew up in a small town in southwestern
Louisiana. She excelled in school,
graduating from high school as valedictorian and then earning a perfect grade
point average at Xavier University as a computer science major. "The elders of
the family assured us, my cousins and I, that we would have endless
opportunities to be whatever we wanted," she wrote. She earned her Ph.D. from
Purdue University's School of Industrial Engineering in 2008.
Dr. Savoy was one of a team of eight Purdue graduate students, under the direction of
Prof. Barrett Caldwell, won first place in a national NASA Exploration Systems
Directorate competition.
The team won NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate systems
enginereing paper competition, and received an award of $2,500. The
team was also invited to be VIP attendees at the space shuttle launch
scheduled for the week of 21 October. The team's entry beat out
other entries from Georgia Tech, University of Missori-Rolla, University of
Michigan, Temple University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Utah State
University.
Using quality function deployment and
a Pugh matrix, as a member of the team, Dr. Savoy designed a decision support tool
for improving communication amongst NASA ground operations personnel.
The team focused on addressing a significant and relevant NASA problem
using a cost effective systems engineering process. Using this process,
the students decided that the implementation of the tool should be on Apple's
iPhone. One of the main challenges for the students was that the iPhone
was not available during the project period (February through April), so the
students were forced to use a mockup of the device. The result was a
device designed to help with NASA ground operations for launch vehicle
inspections and other pre-launch activities.
Dr. Savoy's areas of interest include
information design, applied ergonomics, pervasive computing, and assistive
technology. She wrote: "I
recognize my responsibility as an engineer to make the world a better place by
using new technology to solve the neglected simple problems. My aim is to bridge the gap of the
digital divide and provide technology to those that need it." Dr. Savoy was a David
and Lucille Packard Fellow and a Compaq Fellow. She is currently a research associate at SA Technologies in
Atlanta.
Dr. Savoy is an author of Content Preparation Guidelines for the Web and Information Appliance, CRC Pr I Llc, 2009; Information
retention from PowerPoint™ and traditional lectures,
Computers & Education, Volume 52 , Issue 4
(May 2009), Pages:
858-867, year of Publication: 2009, ISN:0360-1315.
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The mission of NSBE is to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community.
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