Purdue University: Computer Scientist Prepares Robots to Enhance Human Lives

There is no avoiding robots. With increasing autonomy, satellites span the skies; vacuums vroom underfoot; and bots conduct surgery, deliver packages and explore the solar system.

Robot expert Sooyeon Jeong, an assistant professor of computer science in Purdue University’s College of Science, works in artificial intelligence to ensure that those robots are more friendly helpers to humans and less inscrutable interlopers, more R2-D2 than HAL, more Baymax than Terminator. AI is a foundational component of the Institute for Physical Artificial Intelligence, a Purdue Computes initiative.

“My goal, and the goal of my research group, is to design robots and AI that can have socially and emotionally natural interactions with people,” Jeong said. “I want anything I make or design to have a measurable positive impact on people’s lives.”