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Sharifa Alghowinem, a researcher in the Media Lab's Personal Robotics Group, poses with Jibo, a friendly robot companion developed by Professor Cynthia Breazeal. Credit: Gretchen Ertl
Dorothy Hannah | Department of Mechanical Engineering
“As a child, I wanted a robot that could explain other people’s emotions to me,” says Sharifa Alghowinem, a research scientist in the Media Lab’s Personal Robotics Group (PRG). Alghowinem, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, dreamed of one day coming to MIT where she would develop Arabic-based technology and create robots that could help her and others navigate our complex world, she says. .
Algowinum had trouble understanding social cues as a child and didn't score well on standardized tests, but her dreams got her through. She earned her bachelor's degree in computing before leaving her home to pursue her graduate education in Australia. She first discovered affective computing at the Australian National University and began working to help AI detect human emotions and moods. But it wasn't until she came to MIT as a postdoctoral fellow on the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Women in Saudi Arabia that she did so. As a mechanical engineering student at MIT, she was finally able to develop the skills to explain other people's emotions in English and Arabic. These days she enjoys her own work so much that she calls her lab ‘my playground.’
Alghowinem cannot refuse an interesting project. She is collaborating with the founders of Personal Robots Group (PRG) and social robotics startup Jibo Inc., a friendly robot companion developed by MIT Professor and Dean of Digital Learning, to create robots with great potential to make robots more useful to people. Found it. Cynthia Breazeale. Breazeal's research explores the potential of companion robots that go far beyond assistive robots that follow transactional commands, such as requesting the daily weather, adding items to a shopping list, or controlling lights. At the MIT Media Lab, the PRG team designed Jibo to be an insightful coach and companion for advancing social robotics technology and research. Visitors to the MIT Museum can experience Jibo's charming personality.
Alghowinem's research has focused on mental health care and education, often collaborating with other graduate students and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program students in the group. In one study, Jibo coached young and old people through positive psychology. He adjusted the intervention based on the verbal and nonverbal responses he observed from participants. For example, Jibo takes participants' verbal content and combines it with non-verbal information, such as long pauses and self-hugs. When Jibo determines that deep emotions have been revealed, he responds with empathy. If the participant does not disclose, Jibo asks gentle follow-up questions such as “Can you tell me more?”
Another project explored how a robot could effectively support high-quality parent-child interaction while reading a storybook together. Several PRG studies work together to figure out what type of data robots need to understand people's social and emotional states.
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Research scientist Sharifa Alghowinem (left) and visiting students Deim Alfozan and Tasneem Burghleh from Prince Sultan University in Saudi Arabia interact with Jibo. Credits: Gretchen Ertl
“I would like to see Jibo become a companion to the whole family,” says Alghowinem. Jibo can fulfill a variety of roles with different family members, including a companion, a reminder for the elderly to take their medicine, and a playmate for children. Alghowinem is particularly motivated by the unique role Jibo can play in emotional health and the role it plays in prevention against depression or even suicide. Integrating Jibo into your daily life gives you the opportunity to have Jibo detect emerging concerns and intervene, acting as a confidential resource or mental health coach.
Alghowinem is passionate about robotics as well as teaching and mentoring others. She meets individually with the students she mentors each week, and earlier this year she was instrumental in helping two of her undergraduate students visit Prince Sultan University in Saudi Arabia. Keeping their social and emotional experiences in mind, she worked hard to create opportunities for both students to visit MIT together and support each other. Tasneem Burghleh, one of her visiting students, said she wanted to meet someone who worked to create opportunities for strangers and found in her “an endless passion that made me want to share that with others.” .”
Next, Alghowinem is working to create opportunities for Syrian refugee children. Still in the fundraising phase, the plan is to equip the social robots to teach children English and social-emotional skills, as well as provide activities to preserve cultural heritage and Arabic language skills.
“We laid the groundwork for Jibo to speak Arabic as well as several other languages,” says Alghowinem. “I hope we can now learn how to make Jibo really useful to kids like me who need support as they learn how to interact with the world around them.”
MIT News