WORKSHOP: The 2012 HRI Pioneers Workshop at the 2012 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

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This is funding to support a Young Pioneers Workshop (doctoral consortium) of approximately 18 graduate students and 2 postdocs from diverse research communities (e.g., computer science and engineering, psychology, cognitive science, robotics, human factors, human-computer interaction design, and communications), along with distinguished research faculty. The event will take place on Monday, March 5, 2012, immediately preceding the Seventh Annual Human Robot Interaction Conference (HRI 2012) to be held March 6-8, 2012, in Boston, and which is jointly sponsored by ACM and IEEE. The theme of HRI 2012 is "Robots in the Loop,' which highlights the importance of autonomously capable robots in enhancing the experiences of human users in everyday life and work activities; the conference will emphasize embodied robotic systems that operate, collaborate with, learn from, and meet the needs of human users in real-world environments. More information about the conference is available at http://hri2012.org/.The Young Pioneers Workshop is designed to complement the conference, by providing a forum for students and recent graduates in the field of HRI to share their current research with their peers and a panel of senior researchers in a setting that is less formal and more interactive than the main conference. During the workshop, participants will talk about the important upcoming research themes in the field, encouraging the formation of collaborative relationships across disciplines and geographic boundaries. To these ends, the workshop will include sessions in a variety of formats. Attendees will hear short talks from 3 selected student participants; those students not invited to give an oral presentation will participate in an interactive poster session. A panel of five senior researchers will share their expertise and insights on how to address the interdisciplinary challenge of HRI. The afternoon breakout session will involve small groups of 3-5 attendees with diverse backgrounds working to design an integrative HRI project, encouraging group participation and the cultivation of cross-disciplinary ideas. The presentation session afterward will allow 10-15 minutes for each breakout group to present a summary to the entire workshop; the organizers anticipate that the discussions will continue during dinner.Broader Impacts: This workshop will afford a unique opportunity for the best of the next generation of researchers in human-robot interaction to be exposed to and discuss current and relevant topics as they are being studied in several different research communities (including but not limited to computer science and engineering, psychology, robotics, human factors and ergonomics, and human-computer interaction). This is important for the field, because it has been recognized that transformative advances in research in this fledgling area can only come through the melding of cross-disciplinary knowledge and multinational perspectives. Participants will be encouraged to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers at a critical stage in their professional development, to form collaborative relationships, and to generate new research questions to be addressed during the coming years. Participants will also gain leadership and service experience, as the workshop is largely student organized and student led. The PI will act aggressively to recruit young researchers from minority and underrepresented groups in order to assure diversity of the participants across a variety of dimensions, so that the students' horizons are broadened to the future benefit of the field. The PI will conduct pre- and post-workshop surveys in order to validate the effectiveness of the 2012 Young Pioneers Workshop.