Carlo Pinciroli is an Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator of the Robotics Engineering department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), where he leads the NEST (Novel Engineering for Swarm Technologies) Lab. With additional appointments in WPI’s Artificial Intelligence Program, Computer Science, and Fire Protection Engineering, his research centers on swarm robotics. He is the creator of

Oliver Kroemer’s research focuses on developing algorithms and representations that enable robots to learn versatile manipulation skills over time. By equipping robots with the ability to acquire new skills and adapt manipulations to novel situations, his work opens up a wide range of potential applications—from assisting the elderly and maintaining parks and public spaces to

When humans talk to each other face-to-face, they use their voices, faces, and bodies together in a rich, multimodal, continuous, interactive process. For a robot to participate fully in this sort of natural, face-to-face conversation in the real world, it must also be able not only to understand the social signals of its human partners,

More info will follow soon. This talk will take place as part of SCIoI member Svetlana Levit’s seminar “Selected Topics in Robot Learning,” which explores how advances in machine learning are helping robots operate in new environments, learn new behaviors, and adapt to changing conditions.

Giovanni Beltrame is a Professor in the Department of Computer and Software Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, where he leads the Making Innovative Space Technology (MIST) Laboratory. At MIST Lab, Giovanni is conducting projects in collaboration with industry and government agencies in areas such as robotics, disaster response, and space exploration. His research interests include the

In this presentation Stephen M. Fiore will provide an overview of a body of research in social cognition and its relation to developing artificial social intelligence. In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), an important research direction is the development of systems that can work alongside and collaborate with humans as actual teammates.

Modern AI systems such as LLMs are pervasive and helpful, but do they really have the social intelligence to seamlessly and safely engage in interactions with humans? In this talk, Maarten Sap will delve into the limits of social intelligence of LLMs and how we can measure and anticipate their risks. He will introduce Sotopia,

The world is experiencing a silver tsunami: rapid population aging. As the world’s older population significantly increases, dementia is becoming one of the fastest growing diseases, with no cure in sight. Socially assistive robots are a unique disruptive innovation that are becoming a crucial part of everyday society, especially in a post-pandemic world, aiding people

More info will follow soon. This talk will take place as part of SCIoI member Svetlana Levit’s seminar “Selected Topics in Robot Learning,” which explores how advances in machine learning are helping robots operate in new environments, learn new behaviors, and adapt to changing conditions.