It all started over a cup of coffee.

Stanford Researcher Dr. Melis Yilmaz had been investigating ways to better understand stress and how people respond to it in various situations. 

She had been thinking particularly about stressful jobs, and ways that research and training could help individuals in those roles better respond to scenarios where stress plays a primary factor. 

She didn’t have to look far. 

Melis decided to pitch her idea to law enforcement agencies.

"Every critical decision is preceded by many sub-second decisions that are influenced by external situational factors as well as internal physiological factors,” she said. “Officers get a lot of training for processing situational factors, but not a lot in navigating their own physiological states. By measuring the nervous system activation and behavior, our goal is to educate officers about their own minds and teach them how to control their responses. "

A Mountain View resident herself, when she saw that Mountain View PD had an upcoming Coffee with a Cop event in mid 2019, she decided to attend and see if anyone would hear her pitch. 

That was when she met Deputy Chief Jessica Nowaski. 

“By the time we finished talking about her vision and what she wanted to do with her research, I was like ‘let’s get this going,’” Nowaski said. 

It wasn't long after Coffee with a Cop when D.C. Nowaski introduced Melis to the Police Officer Association president, SWAT and command staff members and productive discussions were on their way on how technologies used in state-of-the-art neuroscience research can be applied to police trainings. Melis is a postdoctoral researcher studying human threat responses and stress interventions combining Virtual Reality and physiological measurements. Together they started brainstorming how the current technologies in Virtual Reality and biosensors can be applied to improve police officer trainings and wellbeing. 

The first step was a pilot research project, where the goal was to test feasibility and identify training need areas where neuroscience could help, particularly with respect to threat responses. In this first phase, that took place in MVPD in November 2020 with over 20 officers voluntarily participating, each officer was put through scenarios to see how their brains and bodies responded to stressful situations, and why they responded the way that they did. The research was a first of its kind with its focus on law enforcement response to stress, but the innovative approach very much fell in line with the culture of MVPD – trying new avenues of training to enhance the best possible public servant for the community. 

While it is too early to talk about final results, phase 1 yielded promising hypotheses for next steps. Research is currently moving to its next phase where the goal is testing out technology and neuroscience-based interventions to improve stress responses.  

“There isn’t anything like this out there right now that approaches police training from a neuroscience angle, so to be able to develop something where we are potentially helping create positive change means a lot,” Melis said. 

For Nowaski, the potential to try new ways to enhance training for officers is vital to the department’s ability to continue to enhance the way in which our officers can serve Mountain View. 

“What we’re doing here can give officers individual ways to improve the ways in which they respond to calls,” Nowaski said. 

We are excited to share more as the program develops, and we’re thrilled to be a part of something that could potentially change the way we can serve you to the best of our abilities. 

Media inquiries can be sent to PIO Katie Nelson at policepio@mountainview.gov