About

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison. I received my B.S. in Biology and Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and then worked for 3 years assisting in neuroscience research at the Center for Healthy Minds. That work developed his passion for Computer Science, and also for designing systems and tools to help people accomplish difficult tasks.

I returned to obtain a Masters in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and am working with Dr. Bilge Mutlu in the People and Robots Lab studying Robot Programming and Human-Robot Teaming.

Collaborative robots (cobots) are increasingly being deployed in manufacturing settings both for their relatively accessible price range, but also their inherent safety advantage over their non-collaborative relatives. However, to truly take advantage of their collaborative potential, designers of these "cobot applications" need significant know-how and experience in constructing effective and safe programs.

Unfortunately, the individuals frequently tasked with creating these programs are trained on more conventional automation applications, where the robot is sequestered away for safety reasons, and therefore don't have the experience needed to construct more dynamic, collaborative interactions. The result of this is that cobots are frequently treated the same as robots, working independently and away from human workers. While this is fine in some cases, it also doesn't generate the benefits that cobots could provide through true direct collaboration with a human, such as reduced ergonomic strain and increased accessibility in cases of varying worker ability, to name a few.

My research focuses on systems and interfaces that support reducing this worker knowledge gap, both by designing such systems to be more natural and easy-to-use, and also supporting the education of existing workers so they have the knowledge to create these cobot applications.

• PhD Doctoral Candidate (expected Summer 2023) in Computer Science, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Masters in Computer Science, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Honors College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Honors Psychology Major at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Biology Major at the University of Wisconsin - Madison

• INTEGRATE Fellow, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Spring 2023
• Best Paper Awardee (ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2023, Systems Track)
• Teaching Award Recipient - Spring 2020 (Class taught in 2019)
• Golden Brick Award, Joint Recipient, for assisting in organizing the first CS Student Research Symposium - Spring 2019
• UW - Madison College of Letters and Science Dean’s List Fall 2009, Spring 2010
• Comprehensive Honors, College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Schoen, A., Sullivan, D., Zhang, Z.D., Rakita, D., and Mutlu, B. (2023). Lively: Enabling Multimodal, Lifelike, and Extensible Real-time Robot Motion. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI ’23), March 13–16, 2023, Stockholm, Sweden. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages.
• Liu, L., Schoen, A. J., Henrichs, C., Li, J., Mutlu, B., Zhang, Y., & Radwin, R. G. (2022). Human robot collaboration for enhancing work activities. Human Factors.
• Schoen, A., White, N., Henrichs, C., Siebert-Evenstone, A., Shaffer, D., & Mutlu, B. (2022, March). CoFrame: A System for Training Novice Cabot Programmers. In 2022 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (pp. 185-194). IEEE.
• Schoen, A., Henrichs, C., Strohkirch, M., & Mutlu, B. (2020, October). Authr: A task authoring environment for human-robot teams. M (pp. 1194-1208).
• Zahn-Waxler, C., & Schoen, A. (2015). Empathy, prosocial behavior and adjustment: clinical aspects of surfeits and deficits in concern for others. In Tremblay, R.E., Boivin, M., & Peters, R.D., (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development: Prosocial Behaviour.
• Perlman, D. M., Weng, H., Schoen, A., Fox, A., Kral, T., Cayo, A., et al. (2012). Anterior insula recovery to pain and altruistic redistribution in an economic decision paradigm. Poster for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroeconomics.

• University of Wisconsin People and Robots Lab - Graduate Research Assistant (September 2016 - Present)
  • Developed numerous Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for assisting robot programmers in constructing effective human-robot programs
    • LivelyStudio, a system for designing and visualizing procedurally generated robot motions through a flow-based programming user interface
    • CoFrame, a combined learning-programming environment for supporting robot programmers in producing effective and safe collaborative robot programs through rich visuals and feedback grounded in an expert model of robotics: https://github.com/Wisc-HCI/CoFrame
    • Authr, an application that supports transforming human tasks into human-robot collaboration programs through allocation and program verification https://github.com/Wisc-HCI/authr
  • Developed algorithms to assist in processing and planning using a variety of different programming languages
  • Created open-source libraries for supporting visualization and program specification
    • Lively, a Rust-based library for multimodal robot pose optimization with embedded liveliness
    • SimpleVP, a highly configurable web-based visual programming tool similar to Blockly focusing on flexibility and programmatic interactivity
    • RobotScene, a web-based visualization library targeted towards robotics-focused visualizations and interactions using three.js and react-three-fiber
  • Performed user evaluations, site visits, and interviews to assess usability and suitability of robotics systems we designed, as well as assess real-world current and potential robotics-focused solutions.
  • Conducted site visits, observations, and interviews regarding current and potential robotics applications in manufacturing contexts
  • Assisted in lab productivity endeavors, including implementation of an internal wiki, workshops for interface design, and network configuration
  • Mentored multiple undergraduates and peer-advised junior grad students in research across a variety of topics, including augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), accessibility, and collaborative and social robotics
  • Participated in outreach efforts such as Grandparents University, where I taught a class on social robotics for kids and their grandparents
• University of Wisconsin HCI Lab - Lead Graduate Teaching Assistant (September 2019 - December 2019)
  • Assisted Professor Bilge Mutlu in the design of the class (Designing User Interfaces), including homework, exam, and lecture materials
  • Implementation of RESTful API for use in class by students
  • Organized other teaching assistants and graders in managing grading and office hour discussions
• Center for Investigating Healthy Minds – Research Intern/Assistant (May 2011-August 2016)
  • Produced an iPad app to assist in data acquisition and session functionality. Using JavaScript and the Qualtrics survey engine, implemented a set of long-established economic decision-making tasks in online form.
  • Collected and processed facial electromyography (EMG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) data.
  • Assisted in organizing and managing a research project involving buying/selling behaviors and other physiological measures.
  • Trained and supervised a large team of undergrads to perform quality checking and correction to Freesurfer (brain analysis software) output in a high-throughput manner. This involved interfacing with Google Spreadsheets, which contained the status of currently running processes, as well as user notes regarding errors and corresponding corrections. This allowed for tight control of all aspects of processing, in addition to collaborative and supervisory functionality.
  • Assisted in the development of a novel method for generating custom Regions of Interest (ROIs) for brain grey matter analysis. This involved the use of Advanced Normalization Tools (ANTs) in conjunction with cortical-mapping software Freesurfer in a novel way to generate high-quality custom ROIs.
  • Produced two papers summarizing data gathered by the lab. Coordinated with an adviser and several undergrads to plan, execute, and produce a senior honors thesis.
  • Served as a Teaching Assistant Fall 2015 for Neuroscience Training Program 675

Bilge Mutlu, PhD, University of Wisconsin—Madison, bilge@cs.wisc.edu

Emmanuel Senft, PhD, Idiap Research Institute, esenft@idiap.ch

Robert Radwin, PhD, University of Wisconsin—Madison, rradwin@wisc.edu