Dr. Holly Yanco

University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Talk Title:

Designing Robots for Humans

Date:

8 April 2022

Time:

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm (Presentation)

Abstract:

All robots interact with people in some way. Robots navigating in difficult and dynamic environments often need assistance from human operators or supervisors, either in the form of teleoperation or interventions when the robot’s autonomy is not able to handle the current situation. Even in more controlled environments, such as office buildings and manufacturing floors, robots may need help from people. As robots become more autonomous and ubiquitous, people will become bystanders to the systems, with little knowledge of the robot’s intent. This talk will focus on the design of human-robot interaction for a wide variety of applications, ranging from assistive technology to telepresence to exoskeletons to humanoid robots.

Biography:

Dr. Holly Yanco is a Distinguished University Professor, Professor of Computer Science, and Director of the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research interests include human-robot interaction, evaluation metrics and methods for robot systems, and the use of robots in K-12 education to broaden participation in computer science. Yanco‘s research has been funded by NSF, including a CAREER Award, the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute, ARO, DARPA, DOE-EM, ONR, NASA, NIST, Google, Microsoft, and Verizon. Yanco has a PhD and MS in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA in Computer Science and Philosophy from Wellesley College. She is a AAAI Fellow.