Dave Feil-Seifer: Social impact of long-term cooperation with robots

Title

Social impact of long-term cooperation with robots

Mentor

Department

Biosketch

David Feil-Seifer's research is motivated by the potential for socially assistive robotics (SAR) to address health-care crises that stem from a lack of qualified care professionals for an ever-growing population in need of personalized care. SAR provides assistance through social rather than physical interaction and can augment human caregivers. He has worked to develop SAR algorithms and complete systems that are relevant to domains such as post-stroke rehabilitation, elder care, and therapeutic interaction for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The key challenge for such autonomous SAR systems is the ability to sense, interpret, and properly respond to human social behavior, especially given the unpredictable and heterogeneous nature of human responses. Dave studied computer science for his undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester, M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Southern California, and postdoctoral associate at Yale University. He has been the leader of his undergraduate robotics competition team, robotics competition coach, and research mentor to more than 100 undergraduates.

Project overview

David Feil-Seifer has several undergraduate research projects focusing on Collaborative Human-Robot Interaction (CHRI). They will develop new autonomous robot capabilities and supporting network and data science technology to address the real-world challenges of operating autonomous systems in hospitals, clinics, homes, and infrastructure environments. The research will be supported by experienced graduate students who will help mentor undergraduate projects. The proposed site presents projects related to these computing domains and links them together through a common assistive technology goal. Students will gain experience with robotics and assistive technology to optimize collaboration between a robot and human partner(s). Students will also participate in workshops on how to write an application for graduate school and how to write an application for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF). His lab has had over 100 undergraduate students and most of them have participated in the research publication process.

Pack Research Experience Program information and application