Pragathi Praveena
Date:
Speaker
Pragathi Praveena is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where she contributes to the NSF AI-CARING Institute. Her research explores the intersection of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), with a focus on developing novel interactive systems that facilitate human-to-human communication and collaboration. Pragathi earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with her work supported by funding from the NSF and NASA. Her work was nominated for Best Paper at HRI, and she was selected to be an HRI and RSS Pioneer. Prior to her doctoral studies, Pragathi was a researcher at the Xerox Research Center India and earned a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
Speaker Links: Website, Google Scholar
Abstract
Pragathi will share key insights from her dissertation work, which focused on the development and evaluation of Periscope — a robotic camera system designed to enable a remote expert to provide real-time guidance to a less experienced worker performing procedural, physical tasks (e.g., wiring a car stereo). The dynamic robotic camera provides users with diverse and task-relevant views to facilitate shared awareness between the expert and the worker during the collaboration process. With support from Boeing, she explored the system’s potential to facilitate remote workforce training in manufacturing environments. Her talk will highlight some open challenges and opportunities in designing novel social and collaborative systems that incorporate intelligent agents to enhance teamwork.