Andrea Thomaz

Biography

Dr. Andrea Thomaz is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and Director of the Socially Intelligent Machines research lab. Dr. Thomaz’s research focuses on all aspects of Human-Robot Interaction and specifically on machines that learn new tasks and goals from ordinary people in everyday environments. This research works from the assumption that machines meant to learn from people can better take advantage of the ways in which people naturally approach teaching. We want to understand and computationally model specific mechanisms of human social learning in order to build machines that participate in social learning interactions. This work has interconnected goals from Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer/Robot Interaction: improving the performance of a machine's learning behavior through attention to human interaction and improving the experience of the human teacher by designing interactive learning algorithms based on how people teach. Dr. Thomaz has been named a College of Computing Professor of Excellence for her outstanding contributions to the Institute and to her field of study. Dr. Thomaz holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.