The FSU Developing Scholar Awards Program recognizes successful faculty who are at the mid-career, associate professor level. Recipients of the award receive $10,000 in support of their research program. Only five faculty in the university are selected for this award each year. One of the 2016 awardees is Dr. Wally Boot, an associate professor and Director of the Cognitive Psychology Doctoral Program in the Department of Psychology.

Dr. Boot's research focuses on basic mechanisms of attention and visual processing, and how these mechanisms operate in complex, everyday situations. His research also characterizes how perceptual and cognitive abilities change with age, and explores the implication of these changes for safety-critical tasks such as driving. His human factors research investigates the role technology can play in enhancing the independence of older adults, and how best to design technology to meet the needs of an aging population.

Dr. Boot is the principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple federal and state grants. His research has been continuously supported since arriving at FSU in 2008 by the National Institute on Aging funded Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement, (http://www.create-center.org/). CREATE is dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of technology can be realized by older adults. He has been principal investigator on seven grants/contracts exploring issues of aging road-user safety over the past five years, with these projects being supported by the Florida Department of Transportation and the federal Department of Transportation supported Center for Accessibility and Safety for an Aging population (http://utc.fsu.edu/).