We still have plenty of time before the robots finish taking our jobs — but you might have a robot co-worker or two sooner than you think. The workforce of the near future will undoubtedly involve more and more human-machine teamwork, and Julie Shah is working to make this collaboration as smooth as possible. How can we design robots that work better with humans? And how can we teach people to be better partners to their future computer co-workers?
Julie Shah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and leads the Interactive Robotics Group of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Shah received her SB (2004) and SM (2006) from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, and her PhD (2010) in Autonomous Systems from MIT. Before joining the faculty, she worked at Boeing Research and Technology on robotics applications for aerospace manufacturing. She has developed innovative methods for enabling fluid human-robot teamwork in time-critical, safety-critical domains, ranging from manufacturing to surgery to space exploration. Her group draws on expertise in artificial intelligence, human factors, and systems engineering to develop interactive robots that emulate the qualities of effective human team members to improve the efficiency of human-robot teamwork.