04/04/2024
By Yanfen Li
We are thrilled to welcome our esteemed guest speaker, Henny Admoni, Ph.D, Associate Professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where she leads the Human And Robot Partners (HARP) Lab. Her presentation is titled “Building Better Collaborative Robots.”
Admoni’s research interests include human-robot interaction, assistive robotics, and nonverbal communication, studying how to develop intelligent robots that can assist and collaborate with humans on complex tasks. She is most interested in how natural human communication, like where someone is looking, can reveal underlying human intentions and can be used to improve human-robot interactions. Admoni has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant, an Okawa Research Grant, and the A. Nico Habermann Career Development Professorship at CMU. Admoni’s research has been further supported by the US National Science Foundation, the US Office of Naval Research, the Paralyzed Veterans of America Foundation, Google, Meta, and Sony AI. She has been featured in media such as Wired, NPR’s Science Friday, Voice of America News, and WESA radio.
Previously, Admoni was a postdoctoral fellow at CMU with Siddhartha Srinivasa in the Personal Robotics Lab. She completed her PhD in Computer Science at Yale University with Professor Brian Scassellati in the Social Robotics Lab. Her Ph.D. dissertation was about modeling the complex dynamics of nonverbal behavior for socially assistive human-robot interaction. Admoni also holds an MS in Computer Science from Yale University, and a BA/MA joint degree in Computer Science from Wesleyan University.
Admoni’s lecture is hosted by UML Assistant Professor Maru Cabrera from the Richard A. Miner School of Computer and Information Sciences in the Kennedy College of Sciences. The 50/50 Lecture Series is a unique format geared at both promoting a notable scholar’s work and highlighting the varied paths that lead to successful careers. Half of the speaker’s time will be allotted to their technical, educational, and research interests, and the other half will be devoted to their career path, detailing, for example, challenges overcome or the influence of mentors. The 50/50 lectures are designed to inspire established and emerging scholars to persevere not only by considering the example set by leaders but by looking at their own career holistically. Graduate students are welcome!