Naturally Robotic

Cynthia Breazeal SM ’93, SCD ’00, Faculty

Social robotics pioneer Breazeal is associate professor of media arts and sciences, leads the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, and is founder and chief experience officer of Jibo, Inc., maker of the world’s first “family robot.” She designed two of the most recognizable robots of the last decade: Kismet, one of Wired magazine’s Best Robots Ever, and Nexi, one of TIME‘s 50 Best Inventions in 2008. Breazeal’s research focuses on developing the principles, techniques, and technologies for personal robots that are socially and emotionally intelligent, interact and communicate with people in human-centric terms, and collaborate with people as helpful teammates and companions. Her recent work investigates the potential of social robots to help people of all ages achieve personal goals that contribute to quality of life in domains such as education, creativity, health care, well-being, and aging in place.