Aptima, Inc.
Dr. Kara Orvis, Executive Vice President, Research and Engineering, Aptima, Inc., is also a principal scientist with more than 25 years of experience in government research and development across the military services. Her expertise is in the areas of training, leadership, teams, culture, distributed work, and unobtrusive measurement for which she has more than 80 publications/presentations, including one edited book. At Aptima, she leads projects related to military assessment, formation, training, and development. As a primary investigator, she has pursued and been awarded over 25 contracts from various organizations within the DoD. Her early research focused on virtual work as it relates to teams, leadership, and training. She has also conducted research on game-based training, investigating the influence of training context, individual differences, and game design on student learning, and has been a leader in the field of social sensing and communications-based assessment for team training. Most recently she has been exploring the intersection of AI and talent management. The technical excellence of her work is indicated by multiple best paper awards. She has also been awarded two patents. Dr. Orvis holds an MA and PhD in industrial-organizational psychology from George Mason University and a BA in psychology from Ohio Wesleyan University. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. US Citizen
