Dr. James A. Wise is currently retired and living in
Richland, WA USA after a 40 year career in academia,
private business and as a senior Staff Scientist at a US
government national laboratory.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Ph.D. in Experimental
and Mathematical Psychology at the University of
Washington in 1969, Dr. Wise focused his career on
working with designers, architects and engineers of
complex technical systems and environments in order to
better fit them to users and organizations. In that work, he
has been a tenured university professor, internationally
recognized research scientist, and consultant to
government agencies and major corporations throughout
his career.
He has 150 publications in the academic and professional
literature, with international research awards in Industrial
Design and Architecture, a U.S. Dept. of Energy Award in
Public Outreach and Partnership, and an R & D 100
Applied Technology Award for forming and leading a
team of researchers that created the world’s first text
visualization software. His seminal article on that
research won the 2016 first ’Test of Time’ award from the
IEEE Information Visualization Society.
He continued his citizen’s work in retirement as a
Planning Commissioner for the City of Richland (2012-
’18), and is now a Board Member of the Neutra Institute
for Survival Through Design <<https://neutra.org>>, and
past President of the citizen’s group, Sustainable Tri-
Cities. He also remains active with international research
groups developing fractal design enhancements for
medical wards, and improving habitability design for
planned lunar and Mars bases.
He is currently collaborating with Space Architects and
Human Factors scientists at the TU Wien and SICSA, the
Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture at
the University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA. This
updates his research of the mid 1980’s through the late
1990’s on interior ‘Spatial Habitability’ for NASA, as well
as a survey of the experiences of both Soviet and US
multicultural space crews.
Most recently, he as coauthored papers on “Habitability
and the Golden Rule of Space Architecture” for ICES
2022, “Windows as an Integral Element in Space
Architecture” for the IAC, 2022, and “Importance of
Psychological Factors for Extraterrestrial Base and Site
Planning” for E&S, 2024. He has also provided the
Forward for the book Space Habitats and Habitability:
Designing for Isolated and Confined Environments on
Earth and Space, by Sandra Hauplik-Meusburger and
Sheryl Bishop., Springer, 2021.
