Samantha Shorey

LIVING AND WORKING WITH ROBOTS

Living and Working with Robots (LWR) is an interdisciplinary research ‘collaboratory’ that is dedicated to studying and developing service robots in the communities where they will be used, rather than just in academic and industry labs. It is part of UT’s grand challenge for Good Systems which aims to foster the design of AI technology to benefit society. It brings together thirteen researchers from Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, English, Communication Studies, Robotics, and the School of Information. As part of this team, I’m currently co-leading a set of projects to better understand the users of (near-future) domestic service robots.

Community-Embedded Robotics

A spin-off team from LWR received a National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Grant to design and build a ‘robot observatory’ on our university campus. Here, researchers from multiple disciplines will study how robots interact with changing groups of people in real-world environments — with the goal of widening the scope of robotics research to include the communities they impact and co-evolve with. I’m Senior Personnel on this project, currently helping the team to account for critical aspects of technology use, including gender and labor. As the project develops, my investigation will be expanded to include the maintenance and repair teams necessary to achieve long-term deployment.

The grant award received coverage in USA Today and KVUE news. It was also a feature article in Texas Monthly, “It’s Okay to Fear the Robot Dogs Coming to UT.”