From left to proper, Tom Ryden, Joyce Sidopoulos, Maja Matarić, Tania Morimoto, Daniela Rus, and Tye Brady on the 2025 Girls in Robotics Gala. | Supply: MassRobotics
Late final 12 months, Dr. Maja Matarić and Dr. Tania Morimoto had been named MassRobotics’ Robotics Medal and Rising Star winners. Now, throughout Girls’s Historical past Month, The Robotic Report spoke with each ladies about their present work and advance ladies in robotics.
In her nearly 30 years engaged on robotics in academia, Matarić has pioneered the sector of socially assistive robotics (SARs) and carried out foundational work in multi-robot coordination and human-robot interplay. She earned the Robotics Medal for her work with SARs and for making developments to the sector of distributed robots and studying in human-robot techniques.
Matarić is at present the Chaired and Distinguished Professor of Pc Science within the Viterbi Faculty of Engineering on the College of Southern California (USC).
Moritomo is an affiliate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering on the College of California, San Diego. She earned MassRobotics‘ Rising Star in Robotics Medal for her contributions to novel gentle and versatile medical robots and human-machine interfaces designed to enhance entry to high-quality care.
What’s Matarić engaged on now?
Each Matarić and Moritomo lead robotics labs at their respective universities. Matarić stated analysis at USC’s Interaction Lab is often pushed by her college students’ intereests. “Folks carry their very own lived experiences and drivers and passions to the lab, and that’s at all times been what’s pushed my lab,” she instructed The Robotic Report.
“We’re truly very honored and challenged that we now have an NIH grant to do a randomized medical trial,” famous Matarić. “It is a actual medical trial with USC college students, principally on how we would use a socially assistive robotic that we developed.”
Her lab has developed a social robotic that may act as a companion for college students and information them by cognitive conduct remedy (CBT) workouts at dwelling. The robotic doesn’t act as a therapist, Matarić stated. As a substitute, it helps college students in working towards the talents of CBT.
“We’re speaking about issues like, in case you are on the autism spectrum and have a really atypical eye gaze sample, and you already know that it is advisable to follow extra socially acceptable patterns, or turn-taking patterns, or social referencing, [the robot] creates that social, motivating, participating atmosphere so that you can follow,” Matarić defined.
Proper now, the lab is working to deploy robots in dorms, at scale, to see how college students react or profit from them.
“It feels to me like we now have one thing between a village and a military of people that actually care about this, and it takes that and presumably extra to tug it off,” Matarić stated. “It doesn’t matter what insights we get by way of AI and robotics and socially assistive robotics, I actually, actually hope that we truly assist some college students as effectively.”
Moritomo’s lab has three fundamental focuses
The Moritomo Lab at UC San Diego has three fundamental analysis focuses for the time being, she stated. The primary space is gentle, versatile, snake-like robotic techniques, additionally referred to as continuum robots.
“[The robots] are lengthy and versatile, so their facet ratio is impressed by biology, like snakes, elephant trunks, or octopus tentacles,” Moritomo stated. “These may be fairly helpful for issues like minimally invasive surgical procedure, the place you might need to have one thing that’s softer, extra compliant, and has minimal interplay forces with the physique. You’ll be able to journey these lengthy lengths to entry locations which might be deep contained in the physique, which might be at present laborious to succeed in.”
The second space is haptic interfaces, which may be instantly utilized to the continuum robots. This could embrace haptic interfaces for the robots it develops, and softer, wearable haptic interfaces, which tie into the lab’s third analysis focus: gentle, wearable robots that could possibly be used for rehabilitation.
“For instance, after a neurological damage, like a stroke, there’s numerous bodily remedy that individuals usually need to do,” Moritomo stated. “We’ve been keen on making gentle robots that could possibly be worn extra like clothes that individuals may probably, ultimately, take dwelling and use exterior of the clinic.”
Moritomo has been at UCSD since 2017, and in that point, she has labored with quite a few Ph.D. college students, post-doc college students, and graduate college students.
“We consider our analysis as being a extremely necessary output from the lab, however, for me, the scholars are simply as necessary by way of the product and the output that our lab produces,” Moritomo stated. “These college students are going to essentially be the following technology of engineers and roboticists who I believe are going to guide technological improvement within the coming many years.”
How will we get extra ladies in robotics?
Girls have been traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. Right now, ladies make up solely 16% of engineers. That is although ladies make up over 40% of the worldwide workforce. Matarić stated in her time operating her lab, her college students have continued to shock and push her to rethink how she thinks.
“There was a time, possibly 12 years in the past, after I had one lady pupil, Elaine Quick, who’s now a professor at Tufts. When she got here in, she stated, ‘This has to alter.’ And inside her 5 years, she’s modified it,” Matarić stated. “We’ve had college students who come from very unrepresented socioeconomic backgrounds, and their view of the world is completely different. I’ve needed to recalibrate.”
Moritomo has seen an analogous drive in her college students. Her group does outreach with highschool and even center college college students to carry them into robotics early.
“It’s actually led and run by these wonderful feminine Ph.D. college students within the division, and I’m simply the college mentor who helps with logistics and issues like that,” she stated. “These kind of teams the place they’re energetic in neighborhood constructing and serving to the following technology, I believe that’s necessary.”
Moritomo added that ladies ought to have ladies to look as much as within the trade.
“I had a tremendous Ph.D. advisor, Allison Okamura, and I believe it’s folks like her, folks like Marcia O’Malley, like Maja Matarić, it’s these people who find themselves actually paving the best way. They’re doing it, they’re main by instance, they usually’re doing wonderful analysis,” she stated. “They’re serving to mentor everybody within the subsequent technology, and I believe that’s what actually makes a giant distinction.”
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