The USC Professor Who Pioneered Socially Assistive Robotics

When the robotics engineering field that Maja Matarić wanted to work in didn’t exist, she helped create it. In 2005 she helped define the new area of socially assistive robotics. As an associate professor of computer science, neuroscience, and pediatrics at the University of Southern California , in Los Angeles, she developed robots to provide personalized therapy and care through social interactions.