Maja Matarić
Dr. Maja Matarić, PhD, is Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience, Founding Director of the USC Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, and Senior Associate Dean for Research at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Dr. Matarić is a recognized leader in the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. She currently serves as Associate Editor for the Adaptive Behavior Journal and International Journal of Humanoid Robotics, and is the recipient of several prestigious honors and awards including the NSF Career Award, the MIT Technology Review TR100 Innovation Award, and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award. Her research has been supported by NSF, ONR, DARPA, NASA, DoE, and foundations.
Positions & Honors
Positions| 2006-present | Senior Associate Dean for Research, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California |
| 2006-present | Professor, Computer Science & Neuroscience, University of Southern California |
| 2002-present | Founding Director, USC Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, Los Angeles |
| 2001-2006 | Associate Professor, Computer Science & Neuroscience, University of Southern California |
| 1998-present | Director, USC Robotics Lab, Los Angeles |
| 1997-2001 | Assistant Professor, Computer Science & Neuroscience, University of Southern California |
| 1995-1997 | Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA |
Selected Honors & Awards
| 2009 | USC Mellon Mentoring Award |
| 2007 | Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
| 2006 | The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi |
| 2005 | USC Viterbi School of Engineering Service Award |
| 2004 | Okawa Foundation Award |
| 2003-present | Associate Editor, Int. Journal of Humanoid Robotics |
| 2002-2003 | USC Provost's Center for Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship |
| 2001-present | Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Executive Council |
| 2000 | IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award |
| 1999 | MIT Technology Review TR100 Innovation Award |
Education
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Ph.D. | 1994 | Artificial Intelligence & Robotics |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | M.S. | 1990 | Artificial Intelligence & Robotics |
| University of Kansas, Lawrence | B.S. | 1987 | Computer Science & Neuroscience |
Current Research Support
54-4509-8880 Schaal (PI) 09/01/2006-08/31/2009
NSF Major Research Infrastructure
Humanoid Robot for the Study of Human Behavior
This project is setting up an experimental lab with complex humanoid life-sized robot test-beds for socially assistive robotics experiments.
Role: Co-Investigator
53-4509-6180 Matarić (PI) 09/15/2005-08/31/2009
NSF Human Social Dynamics Program
Collaborative Research: Dynamic of Human Behavior
This project is developing algorithms and analysis methods for describing and predicting human spatial and social behavior.
12-1509-5001 Matarić (PI) 09/01/2008-08/31/2009
LA Basin Clinical Translational Science Institute
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Robotics for Enhancing Floortime Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
This project will perform a pilot study focused on using robotics as part of floortime therapy.
54-4509-4400 Matarić (PI) 07/01/2007-06/30/2010
NSF CRI (the assistive research equipment grant)
CRI:IAD Computing Infrastructure for Human-Robot Interaction and Socially Assistive Robotics
Infrastructure grant that provides robot hardware and devices for the rest of PIs research.
53-4509-7220 Matarić (PI) 05/01/2008-03/31/2010
National Academies Keck Foundation Futures Initiative
Socially Assistive Robotics for the Physical and Cognitive Healthspan
This study will develop socially assistive robots and perform a user study with Alzheimers populations.
53-4509-6181 Matarić (PI) 08/15/2007-07/31/2010
NSF IIS Human-Robot Interaction Program
Personalized Assistive Human-Robot Interaction: Validation in Socially-Assisted Post-Stroke Rehabilitation
This study will develop socially assistive stroke rehabilitation robots and perform a user study.
53-4509-3566 Matarić (PI) 08/01/2008-07/31/2011
NSF Human-Centered Computing Program
Personalized Socially-Assistive Human-Robot Interaction: Applications to Autism Spectrum Disorder
This grant develops socially assistive robotics as tools for autism spectrum disorder intervention.
53-4503-2968 Narayanan (PI) 07/01/2008-06/30/2010
Autism Speaks
Robotics and Speech Processing Technology for the Facilitation of Social Communication Training in Children with Autism.
Developing robotics technology for ASD intervention.
Role: Co-Investigator
Selected Publications
- Mower, Emily, Mataric, Maja J., and Narayanan, Shrikanth, “Human Perception of Audio-Visual Synthetic Character Emotion Expression in the Presence of Ambiguous and Conflicting Information”, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, accepted, to appear in 2009.
- Dahl, Torbjorn, Matari ́c, Maja J., and Sukhatme, Gaurav S., “Multi-Robot Task Allocation Through Vacancy Chain Scheduling”, Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 57(6), Jun 2009.
- Tapus, Adriana, Tapus, Cristian, and Matari ́c, Maja J, ”User-Robot Personality Matching and Assistive Robot Behavior Adaptation for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Therapy.” Intelligent Service Robotics Journal, special issue on Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics, A. Tapus, ed., Feb 2008.
- Adriana Tapus and Maja J. Matarić, "Socially Assistive Robots: The Link between Personality, Empathy, Physiological Signals, and Task Performance." Proceedings, AAAI Spring Symposium on Emotion, Personality, and Social Behavior, Mar 2008.
- Adriana Tapus, Juan Fasola, and Maja J. Matarić, "Socially Assistive Robots for Individuals Suffering from Dementia", ACM/IEEE 3rd Human-Robot Interaction International Conference Workshop on Robotic Helpers: User Interaction, Interfaces and Companions in Assistive and Therapy Robotics, Mar 2008.
- David J. Feil-Seifer and Maja J Matarić, "B3IA: An architecture for autonomous robot-assisted behavior intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders", Proceedings, IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2008), Munich, Germany, August 1-3, 2008.
- Emily Mower, Sungbok Lee, Maja J Matarić, and Shrikanth Narayanan, "Joint-Processing of Audio-Visual Signals in Human Perception of Conflicting Synthetic Character Emotions", Proceedings, IEEE Int. Conference on Multimedia \& Expo (ICME-08), Hannover, Germany, Jun 24-26, 2008.
- David J. Fail-Seifer and Maja J Matarić, "Socially Assistive Human-Robot Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders", Proceedings, Int. Sym. on Experimental Robotics, Athens, Greece, July 2008.
- Emily Mower, Sungbok Lee, Maja J Matarić, and Shrikanth Narayanan, "Human Perception of Synthetic Character Emotions in the Presence of Conflicting and Congruent Vocal and Facial Expressions", Proceedings, Int. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, Las Vegas, Mar 30-Apr 4, 2008.
- David Feil-Seifer, Kristine Skinner, and Maja J Matarić, "Benchmarks for Evaluating Socially Assistive Robotics", Journal of Interaction Science, 8(3), 2007, 423-439.
- Adriana Tapus and Maja J Matarić, "Emulating Empathy in Socially Assistive Robotics", AAAI Spring Symposium on Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics, Palo Alto, CA, Mar 2007.
- Adriana Tapus, Cristian Tapus, and Maja J. Matarić, "Hands-Off Therapist Robot Behavior Adaptation to User Personality for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Therapy", Proceedings, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA-07), April 2007.
- Adriana Tapus, Maja J. Matarić, and Brian Scassellati, "The Grand Challenges in Socially Assistive Robotics", IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 14(1), Mar 2007.
- Maja J Matarić, Jon Eriksson, David Feil-Seifer, and Carolee Winstein (2007). "Socially Assistive Robotics for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation", International Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 4(5).
- Adriana Tapus, Cristian Tapus, and Maja J. Matarić, "Hands-Off Therapist Robot Behavior Adaptation to User Personality for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Therapy", Proceedings, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA-07), April 2007, 1547-1553.
- Adriana Tapus, Maja J. Matarić, and Brian Scassellati (2007). "Socially Assistive Robotics: The Grand Challenges in Helping Humans Through Social Interaction", IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, 14(1), 35-42.