{"690912":{"#nid":"690912","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Maithili Patel","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Proactivity and Personalization in Longitudinal Robotic Assistance\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EWednesday, July 1st, 2025\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;10:00am - noon ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELocation:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003EKlaus 1120A or \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgatech.zoom.us%2Fj%2F97630620338%3Fpwd%3DhlbbpuVL06FxEeERbagYMbV5sD4355.1\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Ctm186%40gtvault.onmicrosoft.com%7Cebd4126cff2a450251ff08ded21e8118%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639179225629362066%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=n%2FRoYbr8YBjHYcRaQb5geSL8uw5g0rX1bU0x9Wc%2Fd70%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/97630620338?pwd=hlbbpuVL06FxEeERbagYMbV5sD4355.1\u0022\u003EZoom\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMaithili Patel\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobotics Ph.D. Student\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e956b4d1b072332c2347bff90ac100fc2\u0022\u003EDr. Sonia Chernova (advisor)\u0026nbsp;\u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e25c8459f3267e0984fb040ff8c2dbbc7\u0022\u003EDr. Matthew Gombolay \u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ee1d03dd6d31a8644b4cbf492163ab40c\u0022\u003EDr. Mark Riedl\u0026nbsp;\u2013 School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e745ba8bfa814ba597f26411bc5fb03c0\u0022\u003EDr. Roberto Mart\u00edn-Mart\u00edn \u2013 School of Computer Science, University\u0026nbsp;of Texas, Austin\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ed3dfa0d8e9016b42e18f2470b01fa047\u0022\u003EDr. Jacob Andreas\u0026nbsp;\u2013 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobots are becoming increasingly capable of helping people with everyday tasks, but they remain reactive, waiting to be told what to do. This dissertation asks what it would take for a robot to become a proactive assistant that notices what users need and helps without being asked, the way a good roommate or colleague might. Achieving this requires a robot to \u003Cem\u003Eanticipate\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;a person\u0027s routines, \u003Cem\u003Epersonalize\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;how it helps to match their preferences, \u003Cem\u003Eadapt\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;to dynamic environments and diverse tasks, and \u003Cem\u003Einteract \u003C\/em\u003Ewith users to gather information and minimize errors. This work builds a foundation for proactivity in such unstructured settings, beginning with a unifying formalism that connects existing efforts and defines the problem concretely. From there, it takes on the two central challenges of proactive assistance: anticipating what a user will do and personalizing how the robot helps. For anticipation, it formulates user-behavior prediction over action sequences and contributes graph-based and latent autoregressive models that forecast a person\u0027s future actions from unobtrusive observation, and a dataset\u0026nbsp;capturing\u0026nbsp;realistic longitudinal human behavior. For personalization, it contributes methods that generalize a user\u0027s preferences from limited feedback through abstract concept representations, and that actively elicit unspecified preferences through dialog. Finally, it studies how people respond to a proactive robot during an open-ended creative task, surfacing design insights to guide future robot design.\u0026nbsp;Together, these contributions establish a foundation for proactive robot assistance and map out the open computational problems that future research in the field must address. The dissertation charts a course toward robots that don\u0027t just follow instructions, but take initiative in fulfilling human needs, taking on not only the physical, but also the mental burdens of everyday life.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EProactivity and Personalization in Longitudinal Robotic Assistance\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Proactivity and Personalization in Longitudinal Robotic Assistance"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2026-06-25 12:54:14","changed_gmt":"2026-06-25 12:54:52","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2026-07-01T10:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2026-07-01T12:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2026-07-01T12:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2026-07-01 14:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2026-07-01 16:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2026-07-01 16:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"Klaus 1120A or Zoom","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}