Learn about research, innovation in human-robot interactions at Dec. 1 seminar

Artificial intelligence: A human hand shakes a robot hand

A deeper look at research projects in the Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab (SIRRL) at University of Waterloo will be the topic of discussion for the second instalment of the 2020-21 Research Seminar Series in Science & Technology Studies (STS).

Taking place Dec. 1, 12:30 to 2 p.m. on Zoom, this presentation is a special collaboration between York University’s Department of Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Science, and the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the Lassonde School of Engineering.

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) is one that is relevant across the University, as per York’s Artificial Intelligence and Society Task Force created to develop ideas and examine options for building and featuring York’s research strengths in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

The talk, titled “Socially Intelligent Robots to Improve the Quality of Human-Robot Interaction,” will be presented by Professor Kerstin Dautenhanhn of SIRRL, a lab interested in studying how robots can “naturally,” and in a socially acceptable manner, interact with people.

SIRRL is currently targeting a variety of research issues ranging from fundamental questions of how to improve human-robot interaction, e.g. using co-adaptation based on physiological measurements, or developing techniques to support remote studies on gaze behaviour in human-robot interaction, to applications of social robots (e.g. assistive technology, including the design of a new robot call MyJay built in Waterloo), and search-and-rescue applications where autonomous robots need to communicate efficiently with human team members using multimodal and affective expressions.

Dautenhanhn will offer and overview of different projects, challenges and directions for future work.

To join the meeting, log on to Zoom at 12:15 p.m. on Dec. 1 using this link:

https://yorku.zoom.us/j/93148307101?pwd=aURLakMwSkZIWUtwMTdTSjNvUkVPZz09

Meeting ID: 931 4830 7101
Passcode: 362122

The STS series is sponsored by York University’s Department of Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Science, and coordinated by members of the department. For more information about the Research Seminar Series in Science & Technology Studies, contact Professor Conor Douglas at cd512@yorku.ca or visit sts.info.yorku.ca/seminar-series.