12:00 PM-1:00 PM on October 15, 2014
Location: Manufacturing Institute Auditorium
Title: Designing Learning Interactions for Robots
Abstract: In this talk I present recent work from the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at Georgia Tech. One of the focuses of our lab is on Socially Guided Machine Learning, building robot systems that can learn from everyday human teachers. We look at standard Machine Learning interactions and redesign interfaces and algorithms to support the collection of learning input from naive humans. This talk covers results on building computational models of reciprocal social interactions, high-level task goal learning, low-level skill learning, and active learning interactions using several humanoid robot platforms.
Bio: Andrea L. Thomaz is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs the Socially Intelligent Machines lab, which is affiliated with the Robotics and Intelligent Machines (RIM) Center and with the Graphics Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center. She earned a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, and Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in 2002 and 2006. Dr. Thomaz has published in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Human-Robot Interaction. She received an ONR Young Investigator Award in 2008, and an NSF CAREER award in 2010. Her work has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, on NOVA Science Now, she was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 under 35 in 2009, and on Popular Science Magazine’s Brilliant 10 list in 2012.
