{"39641":{"#nid":"39641","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Technology Review Names Tech Professor Top Innovator","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAndrea Thomaz, an assistant professor in interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been recognized by Technology Review magazine as one of the world\u0027s top innovators under the age of 35.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThomaz, who joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2007, focuses her research on social interactions between robots and humans. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s quite hard to enumerate, much less engineer ahead of time, all the tasks and skills people will need robots to do,\u0022 said Thomaz. \u0022We\u0027re working on developing robots that can learn new skills from everyday people so that the robots can adapt their behavior to the task at hand.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIt\u0027s called Socially Guided Machine Learning, and Thomaz is working on bridging the gap between state-of-the-art learning systems and the kind of teaching an everyday person is able to give the robot.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor example, her robots - Junior and Simon - give visual cues, such as gestures and facial expression, to indicate whether they understand what a human is telling them. Thomaz also develops machine learning methods to help robots learn physical tasks more quickly, particularly from teachers who are not necessarily programmers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThomaz was selected from more than 300 nominees by a panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review, MIT\u0027s magazine on science and technology. She will be featured along with the other 34 finalists in the magazine\u0027s September\/October issue, and will be recognized at MIT\u0027s Emerging Technologies Conference in September.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Andrea Thomaz, an assistant professor in interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been recognized by Technology Review magazine as one of the world\u0027s top innovators under the age of 35.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Andrea Thomaz named top innovator for work with robotics"}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2009-08-25 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:25","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2009-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2009-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"39642":{"id":"39642","type":"image","title":"Andrea Thomaz","body":null,"created":"1449174110","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:21:50","changed":"1475894263","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:37:43","alt":"Andrea Thomaz","file":{"fid":"189687","name":"tyn07128.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tyn07128_2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tyn07128_2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":918588,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tyn07128_2.jpg?itok=XieTitax"}}},"media_ids":["39642"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eengadget%2Ecom%2F2009%2F08%2F24%2Fsimon%2Dthe%2Drobot%2Dwins%2Daward%2Dis%2Dsuper%2Dcute%2Dseems%2Dpretty%2Dboring%2Dt%2F\u0026feature=player_embedded\u0026v=jsFYdcZTTRw","title":"See Simon in Action"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.athomaz.com\/","title":"So, Where\\\u0027s My Robot?"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~athomaz\/","title":"Andrea Thomaz Faculty Page"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/tr35\/Profile.aspx?Cand=T\u0026TRID=770","title":"Technology Review"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1869","name":"andrea"},{"id":"1874","name":"junior"},{"id":"1873","name":"review"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"168887","name":"simon"},{"id":"623","name":"Technology"},{"id":"1871","name":"thomas"},{"id":"1870","name":"thomaz"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}