VDMC’s Jessica Johnson and CCAM’s Andwele Grant Receive Grant from Neurable
November 13, 2025
Old Dominion University’s Dr. Jessica M. Johnson Ph.D, Ed.S (ODU Office of Enterprise Research and Innovation) and Andwele Grant (CCAM – Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing) are partnering with maritime training leaders at the Virginia Digital Maritime Center to bring Neurable EEG into an Industry 5.0 pipeline for skilled trades training research and design.
Their pilot tackles one of the biggest challenges in technical training: reducing errors and ramping novices faster. By using neuro-adaptive XR “guardrails” that activate when attention dips or cognitive load spikes, they’re creating smarter, safer, and more efficient learning environments.
The team is developing a multimodal insight stack that synchronizes brain-state data and environmental signals into timely, just-enough prompts. This shared testbed pairs digital twin training environments with operator insight (OpInsight) data to quantify real-world impact and knowledge transfer, with a goal of scaling across the entire Maritime Industrial Base Program.