Joining the University of South Florida<https://www.usf.edu/> (USF) in August, Dr. Zhao Han<https://zhaohanphd.com/> invites applications for up to two fully funded Ph.D. positions (Research Assistants) starting as early as Fall 2023 in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. program<https://www.usf.edu/engineering/cse/graduate/phd-program.aspx> (catalog<https://catalog.usf.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=18&poid=7770>) at USF in Tampa, Florida, USA. The deadline for Fall 2023 admission is April 15.
This posting is also available at https://zhaohanphd.com/phd-positions/.
Strong candidates are highly motivated, comfortable with programming, eager to learn, hard-working, and demonstrate an interest in the emerging and interdisciplinary field of human-robot interaction (HRI), including robot explanation/transparency, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), collaborative mobile manipulation/robotics, robot platform and interaction design, AI, cognitive science/psychology, or an area related to Dr. Han’s expertise<https://zhaohanphd.com/expertise/>.
Successful candidates will be mentored and trained as prolific and independent researchers, publishing at top-tier international conferences and journals. Dr. Han has a strong publication record<https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/> and extensive mentoring experience<https://zhaohanphd.com/cv/#mentoring> with an inclusive excellence and supportive approach. You will work on real robot platforms using popular robotics frameworks.
Students from underrepresented and underserved groups that are traditionally disadvantaged are strongly encouraged to apply. This position includes tuition waivers and stipends.
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Dr. Zhao Han is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida, joining the faculty in August 2023. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado School of Mines. His research lies broadly in human-robot interaction (HRI), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR). He focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating novel robotic systems and interactions, for embodied robots to be more capable and understandable while interacting and collaborating with humans. He received the best long-paper award at INLG 2022 and the best late-breaking report third prize at HRI 2022. Previously, he had led teams to win multiple international and national robot competitions, including first place in the Panasonic Prototype 3D LiDAR Challenge and second place in the FetchIt Mobile Manipulation Challenge at ICRA 2019. In addition to research, he received a university-wide Mines Diversity, Inclusion, and Access (DI&A) Award in 2022. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UMass Lowell, advised by AAAI Fellow Dr. Holly Yanco. He received his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in Canada.
The University of South Florida (USF)<https://www.usf.edu/> is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success and has an annual budget of 2.34 billion (2022-2023). Ranked top 100 in U.S. News & World Report’s national university rankings, no other public university in the US has risen faster than USF in the past decade. USF is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”, and according to the National Science Foundation, USF spent $568 million on research and development in 2019, ranking it 43rd in the US and 25th among public universities. Serving over 49,000 students, USF is designated as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities<https://admissions.usf.edu/blog/what-is-preeminence-and-why-it-matters-to-y…> by the Florida Board of Governors, receiving additional financial support from the state of Florida for student success and research. Learn more on USF’s about page<https://www.usf.edu/about-usf/index.aspx>.
USF is located in the City of Tampa on the west coast of the Sunshine State of Florida. Full of opportunities and possibilities, the Tampa Bay area has around 3 million people and is one of the top places to live. Learn more about Florida Gulf Coast Living<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/freshmen/why-usf/our-campuses/gulf-coast-liv…> for why over 49,000 students have chosen USF as well as the US<https://www.visittheusa.com/destination/tampa-bay>, state<https://www.visitflorida.com/places-to-go/central-west/tampa/>, and local<https://www.visittampabay.com/> resources.
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A complete application package includes:
* Unofficial Transcripts (including the grade sheet and diploma, if applicable)
* If admitted, official transcripts and test scores will need to be submitted to Graduate Admissions but unofficial transcripts/scores can be used in reviewing the application.
* PDF of GRE Scores
* CV/Resume
* Statement of Purpose
* 3 Letters of Recommendation (Must be on official letterhead with recommender’s title and contact)
* PDF of English Proficiency Scores, if applicable
For consideration, please mention Dr. Zhao Han in your application materials and apply through the USF graduate student admission process<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/graduate/admission-information/>.
The current admission cycle is Spring 2024. To be admitted to Fall 2023, you must also
1. Email your application package without the recommendation letters to zhaohan(a)mines.edu
2. Ask each of your three recommendation letter writers to email their letter to zhaohan(a)mines.edu
By applying in the USF’s admissions portal, any other interested faculty member can also review your application.
All applications and recommendation letters must be submitted to the USF admissions portal and emailed to Dr. Zhao Han by April 15.
Applications will be considered starting immediately. International students should apply soon because visa applications require additional time.
Once an admission offer is accepted, Research Assistantship offer decisions will be made once Dr. Zhao Han arrives at USF in August.
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Zhao Han, Ph.D.<https://zhaohanphd.com/> (he/him<https://pronouns.org/>)
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Computer Science, Brown Hall, 280M
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
zhaohanphd.com<https://zhaohanphd.com/> | @hanzhao<https://twitter.com/hanzhao>
<https://twitter.com/hanzhao>
[CALL FOR PAPERS]
SPECIAL SESSION on “HRI in Academia and Industry: Bridging the Gap” @ IEEE
RO-MAN 2023
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Submission Website: http://ro-man2023.org/paperSubmission/papersubmission
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Special Session Submission Code: an7c7
IMPORTANT DATES
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*NEW* Paper Submission Deadline: March 31, 2023 (AoE)
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Notification of Acceptance: May 26, 2023
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Final Paper Submission: June 30, 2023
AIM AND SCOPE
The use of robots that operate in spaces where humans are present is
growing at a dramatic rate. We are seeing more and more robots in
warehouses, on streets, and even in our homes. All of these robots will, as
part of their primary function, interact with humans in some way. In order
to be successful, their interactions with humans will have to be carefully
designed. The field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has been growing at
the intersection of robotics, AI, psychology, and a number of other fields.
However, until quite recently, it has been a largely academic area, with
university researchers proposing, implementing, and reporting on
experiments at a limited scale. With the current increase of
commercially-available robots, HRI is starting to make its way into
industry in a meaningful way.
This special session is intended to bring together HRI researchers and
practitioners from both academia and industry, to discuss how these areas
are different in their needs and approaches, and to figure out how HRI
researchers and practitioners in these areas can work together – How can we
make academic HRI research and education more relevant to industrial needs?
How can industry support and contribute to more science-focused HRI? The
special session will attract contributions on four broad themes, outlined
below, in an attempt to build a new community interested in how these two
active areas of HRI research and practice can work more closely together,
and support each other in practical terms. We welcome research and case
study papers with at least one section devoted to addressing some of the
questions outlined below in the discussion section. We also invite survey
and position paper contributions that directly surveys or discusses some of
the below questions.
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The Constraints and Needs of HRI in Industry
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What are the constraints of deploying HRI at scale in consumer robots?
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What are the pressing HRI problems that the industry wants to solve?
Why?
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How do we measure the success of HRI in a consumer product?
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What HRI research can we do in an industry setting that we can’t do
in academia?
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The Relevance and Innovation of Academic HRI
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What are the constraints of HRI research in an academic environment?
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What industrial or consumer applications drive interesting academic
HRI research?
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How do we measure the success of academic HRI beyond controlled
experiments and p-values?
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What HRI research can we do in an academic setting that we can’t do
in industry?
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Interaction between Academic and Industrial HRI: Publications,
Conferences, Tools/Technology Resources, and Experiments
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What are the constraints of publishing in industry, and how do we
address them?
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How can academic & industrial HRI researchers collaborate
meaningfully across the IP boundary?
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How can industry HRI research benefit more from science-driven
approaches?
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How can academic HRI research benefit more from real-world problems?
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HRI Education and Training: What does Academia and Industry Need?
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What does it mean to be an HRI researcher? What are required skill
sets in industry & academia?
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How should we be training future HRI researchers for industry and
academic career paths?
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Since HRI can touch on all aspects of a robot system, how much HRI
should robot hardware and software developers know?
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How can HRI researchers with interdisciplinary backgrounds integrate
successfully with hardware and software development teams? How much
technical background do they need to know?
Contributions
The special session contributions will go through the same peer review
process as regular track papers, and the accepted manuscripts will appear
in the Ro-Man23 proceedings.
Please follow the directions as provided in the conference website:
http://ro-man2023.org/paperSubmission/papersubmission
In Steps 3 and 4, select "Special Session Paper" under the First Submission
category, and enter the following code to submit to our session.
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Special Session Submission Code: an7c7
Organizers
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Hae Won Park (Amazon Lab126 and MIT)
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Bill Smart (Amazon Lab126 and Oregon State University)
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Ross Mead (Semio)
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Chien-Ming Huang (Johns Hopkins University)
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Anastasia K. Ostrowski (MIT)
--
Ross Mead, PhD
Founder and CEO
ross(a)semio.ai
+1 (618) 696-2600
<https://semio.ai>