Anastasia Ostrowski

Date:

Speaker

Anastasia K. Ostrowski is a PhD student and design researcher at the MIT Media Lab in the Personal Robots Group. Her work focuses on equitable design of robots, including co-design and participatory design approaches. Before becoming a design researcher at the Media Lab, she received her master’s and bachelor degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan with a focus on engineering design processes and idea generation.

Speaker links: Website - Google Scholar


Abstract

As robots enter our social spaces, we are faced with new complex questions and challenges, such as how these technologies will create or further entrench inequities in society and whose voices are heard in technology design. To help address these challenges, human-centered design methodologies and frameworks, such as participatory design, co-design, and Design Justice, can be further developed in human-robot interaction to promote more equitable robot design and policy design processes. In this talk, I will discuss my work on empowering users through co-design of robots, presenting design guidelines for more equitable co-design practices in human-robot interaction and promoting further discussion around the design ecosystems of innovative technology.


Papers covered during the talk

  • Ostrowski, A. K. & Breazeal, C. (2022, March). Design Justice for Robot Design and Policy Making. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. link

  • Ostrowski, A. K., Breazeal. C., & Park, H. W. (2021, August). Long-Term Co-Design Guidelines: Empowering Older Adults as Co-Designers of Social Robots. In 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. link

  • Ostrowski, A.K., Breazeal, C., & Park, H.W. (2022, March). How do older adults engage as robot co-designers? Rapid prototyping supported by lived experiences with technology. In 2022 Design Thinking Research Symposium. (pp. 121-138). DesignTech, Faculty of Architecture & Town Planning Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 2022 link