Expert in Psychology, Human Factors, Acoustics, and Artificial Intelligence Counsels STEM Fellows to “Just Say YES!”
Dr. Yvonne Masakowski has a distinguished career in psychology and a host of related fields, including as a researcher and professor for the US Navy, and working with the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), industry, and colleges. The range and scope of experience across these organizations afforded Masakowski insights that she shared in with Sandra Lee Heyman Foundation STEM Career Awareness Fellows in a February discussion with them.
At the top of the list of her recommendations, Masakowski said, “It's important who you meet, and who you say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to because those things have a trajectory that can span a lifetime.” Masakowski learned that lesson at Rutgers University when she signed up for a course in psychophysics – even though she lacked the necessary prerequisites. Having posed an intriguing question in class, Masakowski was asked to join the professor’s research team. She declined initially, telling the professor, “I'm turning it down because I want to go to graduate school. I need straight A’s as I’m married and have two little kids, a dog and a house…and I'm busy.” Her future mentor encouraged her to give it a try and she accepted the invitation, which changed her life. Saying “Yes” to that invitation was the key inflection point in her education and shaped her entire career, which began at Bell Laboratories, where she investigated acoustic signals and developed cognitive models. The results of this research paved the way for her career.
Masakowski selected psychology initially, thinking that her interest and ability in analyzing situations would make her a good clinician and help people to solve their problems. “At the very worst, I figured that I could get a job in personnel. That's how limited my scope of knowing what was out in the world,” she confessed. She soon learned that psychology opened the door to many career possibilities.
Though her Rutgers dissertation was focused on music perception, the cognitive model she developed served as the foundation for the Navy’s signal detection system for military applications. Following graduation, the Navy recruited her to join their research team and offered to support her Ph.D. She joined the Navy Submarine Medical Research Laboratory and began her research in signal classification, and her Ph.D. focused on psycholinguistics. That’s when she discovered her love of neuroscience and neurophysiology as biomarkers of stress and its impacts on human development, attention, and decision making. Masakowski shifted her career goals, stepping away from psycholinguistics into the neurobehavioral development of the human fetus. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Experimental Psychology at Rutgers University, a Master’s Degree from the University of Connecticut in Psychology/Psycholinguistics along with a second Master’s Degree in Philosophy and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York
Speaking with the fellows, Masakowski stressed the importance of internships to get experience. She exhorted them to say “yes!” and to seek research opportunities and gain experience that will shape their thinking. “Experiences like that will just open the world to things you didn't think about before.” She encouraged the fellows to contact the college that they plan to attend to inquire about internships and research assistantships. “They're eager to get young people who want to come into a lab and spend a day a week or work over the summer or volunteer.”
Masakowski declined an offer as a postdoctoral research offer from Harvard Medical School in favor of a job offer from the Navy. “It was a very low salary (at Harvard), and I was thinking about the college debt that I had” – so she returned to the Navy. However, this time she joined the Naval Undersea Warfare Center where she conducted human factors research focusing on advanced technologies, cultural differences and stress in decision making. She worked on autonomous system design and developed an interest in AI and psychological warfare. This gave rise to her interest in cognitive warfare which integrates these topics as weapons for disinformation campaigns and influencing nations, political upheavals, and inciting civil unrest. Cognitive warfare exploits information for specific strategic aims and plays a pivotal role in national security today. This research led to multiple assignments working closely with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, The Technical Cooperation Program, NATO, and other European allies.
The results of these efforts earned her numerous national and international awards from NATO, France, and Poland, as well as the highest medal of military honor from The Czech Republic, The Cross of Merit, for her scientific contributions. This all began from a question in the psychophysics class and her research at Bell Labs.
Masakowski encouraged the fellows to pursue topics they love and to create their future by asking critical questions that will lead them to their career. She urged them to work collaboratively with others on research teams, especially international teams. Masakowski counseled the students to consider doing research for the US military as it provides extensive opportunities to develop their career, stating, “Every government has a cadre of scholars (in that field) working for them in the military.…That includes some armies which deploy psychologists with the troops to do research on stress management in situ, under combat conditions.”
As for areas of psychology likely to be of special interest in the future, Masakowski singled out neuroscience, but she encouraged the fellows to also look closely at the intersection of related fields, such as Artificial Intelligence, psychology and biotechnology, genetics, and ethics.
To a fellow who asked about the future development of AI and how students can get involved, Masakowski predicted “There's no field that will be untouched by AI.” She pointed to a variety of AI training programs, including six-week courses, offered by colleges and the federal government, including by the Department of Defense.
Asked how ethics relates to psychology, Masakowski cited medical, business, and government settings. She zeroed in on how AI applications are raising important ethical questions that psychologists can help to address. “You don't want AI systems making unethical choices and decisions. Ethics can be about preserving and protecting classes of people. For example, if an experienced female military officer is pregnant and she's being considered for promotion, the AI system might overlook that person even though she might be the more experienced person.”
Masakowski offered other tips:
· Wherever you go to school, if there's an opportunity to join a research team, by all means do so.
What are you curious about? Ask critical questions. Create your future. Do what you love and help develop the capabilities that you have inside of you to share with the world.
Go with your strengths and your interests because you're going to spend a lot of time doing this. You should be taken over by the topic. You should love it, and you should want to do it – because it is going to take a lot of time.
Be on the cutting edge. Be the pioneer. Think about what questions you could raise. Having open curiosity is the best thing in the world.
Do summer internships to help determine what you are interested in. Then when you get to college, find out who is doing research in that area.
If you can get into the very top colleges, “go for it,” especially to help with networking. But education is what you put into it. Invest in yourself! It's about you pushing yourself. It's nice to go to the fancy seven schools. But at the same time, it's what you do with it. It's how you pursue your career and take it seriously.
If you take yourself seriously, other people will take you seriously and they'll know it through your work.
Having a balanced life is important. You have to find time to relax. She added, “For myself, my faith, family and friends strengthened me. There will be challenges but you have to also take the energy and discipline to focus on the work you want to achieve. If you don't give your best, the only person you're cheating is yourself.”
Don't give a half-hearted effort. Be a hundred percent into it. Do what you show an aptitude for and do what you love – and you'll make time for friends and family.
Asked if she had foreseen the path that her career would take, Masakowski replied “I had no idea where I'd end up. And if you told me as a young girl that I would live around the world, and I would do all that I’ve done…. I had no clue that this was going to be my journey. None. But I kept the focus and the enthusiasm about what my work was. And I went after ideas that really excite me. I still do. I’ll never stop learning!” She urged the fellows to follow suit.
Additional Background on Dr. Yvonne Masakowski:
Most recently, Masakowski was the SETA, Senior Product Development Manager for the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), Responsible AI Division, Washington, D.C.
Prior to this, she was the Principal Scientist (contractor) for the NATO Innovation Hub, Norfolk, VA. She has served on numerous NATO panels over 25 years. She was the recipient of a NATO excellence award (2022) for her efforts as the US Chair for the NATO Research Task Group (RTG 286) focused on Leader Development for NATO Multinational Military Operations. More recently, she co-chaired NATO’s research team (RTG 356) focused on “Mitigating and Responding to Cognitive Warfare”. She continues to contribute to NATO research by providing her expertise as a Subject Matter Expert to several NATO panels.
Masakowski served as a Professor at the US Naval War College, where she taught graduate courses in Leadership, Ethics, Humanities and Cross-Cultural Development. She also taught Executive Development and ethical decision making to Navy Flag Officers and Navy JAG Officers. She also developed tailored courses and lectures developed on specific topics of interest including AI, decision making, critical thinking and cultural competence. Following her retirement, the Naval War College appointed her as an Honorary Research Fellow to continue mentoring graduate student dissertations focused on Artificial Intelligence.
During her career, she had the privilege of serving as the CNO Science Advisor to the CNO Strategic Studies Group which focused on the impact of advanced technologies on future warfare. She served as the Senior Scientist, Human Factors at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and as a visiting Scientist to NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, La Spezia, Italy. She was the first Associate Director, Office of Naval Research Global office in London, UK.
In addition to her multiple undergraduate and graduate degrees, she also has a Diploma from MIT Seminar XXI on foreign policy and national security.
The Sandra Lee Heyman Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in memory of Sandra Lee Heyman, a long-time mathematics teacher at the elementary, middle school, high school, and community college levels. The 18-month long Fellowship is aimed at promising high school students who have the opportunity to meet with STEM leaders, visit prominent institutions in the Washington, D.C., area, and access peers and mentors to support career exploration in STEM fields. There are multiple ways to support the Fellowship program, and donations to the Foundation are tax deductible.