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Kenzie Hurley


This year, CURF was proud to sponsor the CURF-3MT People's Choice Award for the Clemson University 3-Minute Thesis Competition. We are excited to announce Kenzie Hurley as the 2022 recipient. 

Kenzie Hurley is a current Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology PhD Candidate at Clemson University, with her M.A. in I-O Psychology from the University of West Florida. As a consultant, Kenzie has worked with the Department of Defense and Navy for 3 years, as well as for other large-scale organizations. Her work has shaped training for the Navy and has assisted the Department of Defense with understanding factors that can influence workplace equality in military units. At Clemson University, Kenzie has proposed and created a university-wide survey to assess the culture of graduate student programs. Notably, she has been the recipient of the 2019 Commandant's Award of Excellence from the United States Department of Defense, the 2022 Clemson University Excellence in Engagement and Social Advocacy Award, and the 2022 RADM Fred Lewis and Leonard P. Gollobin I/ITSEC Postgraduate Scholarship.

During the 3-Minute Thesis competition, Kenzie presented her research on using cognitive task analysis to evaluate the Navy's parachute descent training. Through her interviews with aircrew and pilots that had ejected from their aircrafts, she identified the knowledge and skills necessary to safely survive from an airplane ejection and to correctly use a parachute. Afterwards, old records of parachute ejections and recorded videos were used to identify characteristics of scenarios involves, such as weather conditions. From this information, Kenzie constructed and fine-tuned a parachute descent virtual simulator. This simulation will be used by the Navy to help train current military members and veterans, as well as improve muscle memory for aircrew and pilots. Thanks to Kenzie's research, hundreds of lives will be saved from the training using her simulator. 

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