Expertise

Topics:  Cognitive Psychology, Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Healthcare, Human Assistance, Computer Science

Industries: Research, Education/Learning

Henny Admoni is an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and also has a courtesy appointment in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at CMU. She leads the Human And Robot Partners (HARP) Lab, which studies how to develop intelligent robots that can assist and collaborate with humans on complex tasks like preparing a meal. Henny is most interested in how natural human communication, like where someone is looking, can reveal underlying human intentions and can be used to improve human-robot interactions. Henny's research has been supported by federal agencies and industry, such as the US National Science Foundation, the US Office of Naval Research, the Paralyzed Veterans of America Foundation, and Sony Corporation. Her work has been featured by the media such as NPR's Science Friday, Voice of America News, and WESA radio. Previously, Henny was a postdoctoral fellow at CMU. She holds an MS and PhD in Computer Science from Yale University, and a BA/MA joint degree in Computer Science from Wesleyan University.

Media Experience

Robotics Professor Answers Robot Questions From Twitter  — Wired Online
Robotics professor Henny Admoni answers the internet's burning questions about robots! How do you program a personality? Can robots pick up a single M&M? Why do we keep making humanoid robots? What is Elon Musk's goal for the Tesla Optimus robot? Will robots take over my job writing video descriptions...I mean, um, all our jobs? Henny answers all these questions and much more.

Supporting Black Scholars in Robotics  — IEEE Spectrum
Robotics is a fast-growing field with important economic and societal impacts. Despite the relevance of robotics, however, there is little diversity among educators and researchers in the area. This problem is especially acute among Black scholars and is not improving. In this article, we outline the representation problem and introduce a reading list along with suggestions for how those in academia—researchers, teachers, students, conference organizers, and others—can take actions that increase Black representation in robotics. While our analysis focuses on the situation in the United States, we hope that our suggestions will be of use to colleagues in other countries as well.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot is leaving the laboratory  — The Verge
That’s the opposite of what many academic roboticists focus on, and Henny Admoni, who works on Human-Robot interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, told me it was an understandable but tricky trade-off. “Boston Dynamics has always been strong in mechanics and controls, like being able to shift the robot’s weight properly,” Admoni told me. “But robots operating in human environments won’t really have the option of avoiding humans. Integrating Human-Robot Interaction skills into development at an early stage is probably going to lead to greater success than trying to retrofit human interaction into existing systems.”

Amazon jumps into the home robot race  — Axios
Why it matters: Amazon is stepping into a newish, already existing market for home, socially interactive robots, says Henny Admoni, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon. "A lot of people are excited about them, but I wouldn't say Amazon is the first," Admoni told Axios.

Let Robots Teach Our Kids? Here's Why That Isn't Such a Bad Idea  — NBC News
Despite these clever androids, we're still far from having Rosie-like robots we can trust as nannies. Today's autonomous bots still lack the manual dexterity to, say, pour a child a cup of milk, or the emotional instincts to soothe a crying toddler. "Having a robot that's capable of those types of things won't come for the next 20 or 30 years," says Henny Admoni, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University.