Join us as we discuss the utopian robotic future with Alexis Block, inventor of HuggieBot and Andrew Flett, partner at Mobility Impact Partners (full bios below). This program is a joint effort between RobotLab, SOSA and Birthright Excel.
BIOS:
Alexis E. Block received her bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and two minors in Math and Engineering Entrepreneurship in 2016 from the University of Pennsylvania. The following year, 2017, she received her masters degree in Robotics, also from the University of Pennsylvania.
Alexis E. Block's doctoral research, HuggieBot, focuses on social-physical human-robot interaction. She is a Center for Learning Systems (CLS) Doctoral Fellow. Block currently works in the Computer Science Department at ETH Zürich. Her two ETH co-advisors are Roger Gassert (Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory) and Otmar Hilliges (Advanced Interactive Technologies). She is looking forward to rejoining her primary doctoral advisor, Dr. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, and the rest of the Haptic Intelligence Department in January 2020.
Block was named a 2018 HRI Pioneer, and elected a General Chair for HRI Pioneers 2019. She also co-founded the MPI Athena Group to support women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, robotics, intelligent systems and related fields.
