<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"><!-- P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} --></style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size:12pt;color:#000000;font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif;" dir="ltr">
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi everyone!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For accessibility </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lunch</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> this
week, </span></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kim Baraka will speak about his work on </span></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">expanding </span></font><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">robot
roles and </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">capabilities in socially assistive domains with a focus on autism therapy</span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Kim
is a dual Ph.D. candidate in Robotics between CMU and the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.
</span></font><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The full title and description of the talk is included below. As always, there will be lunch provided. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Look forward to seeing you all there!</span></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;"></span></font></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">--------------------</span></p>
<p><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
</span></b></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Title</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">:
Expanding the Assistive Capabilities of Robots by Leveraging Standardized Interactive Tools</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaker:
</span></b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kim Baraka</span></span></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br>
</span></b></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Description</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">:
In this talk, I will outline our efforts into expanding robots' capabilities and roles in socially assistive domains, with a focus on autism therapy. I will present two research directions related to social assistance. The first is concerned with having the
robot automatically personalize its social behavior using decision-theoretic methods in order to accommodate for individual differences in autism severity. The second is concerned with developing a simulation platform for complementing the training of autism
professionals, where the robot emulates a range of responses of autistic individuals in standardized interactions. Our work is expected to contribute to technological advances for a richer set of interactions with robots in assistive contexts.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>