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Rosalind Picard
Panel Discussion Close-up, Science, Faith, and Technology Cropped.jpg
Rosalind Picard at the Veritas Forum Science, Faith, and Technology session on "Living Machines: Can Robots Become Human?"
Alma mater Georgia Institute of Technology (BS)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SM, ScD)
Scientific career
Institutions MIT Media Lab
Thesis Texture modeling: Temperature effects on Markov/Gibbs random fields (1991)
Doctoral advisor Alex Pentland
Jae Soo Lim
Sanjoy K. Mitter

Rosalind Wright Picard (born 1962) is an American scientist and inventor. She is a professor at MIT and leads the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. She also helped start two companies, Affectiva and Empatica.

Before working at MIT, Picard was at AT&T Bell Labs from 1984 to 1987. There, she worked on new computer designs and ways to compress images.

Picard has received many awards for her work. In 2005, she became a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for her work on images and understanding emotions in computers. In 2019, she was chosen for the National Academy of Engineering, which is a very high honor for engineers. In 2021, she became a Fellow of the ACM for her work on using body signals for health. Also in 2021, she joined the National Academy of Inventors for her inventions that improve lives. In 2022, she won the International Lombardy Prize for Computer Science Research. She gave the €1 million prize money to support research on digital health and brain science, especially to help people with epilepsy and babies at risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

Picard is known for starting a new area of computer science called affective computing. She wrote a book about it in 1997. This book explained how important emotions are for intelligence. It also discussed how robots and wearable devices could learn to understand emotions. Her work has also helped with autism research. It has led to devices that help people understand emotions better and provide information for healthcare.

Education and Research

Picard earned her first degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1984. She then received her master's degree in 1986 and her doctorate in 1991. Both of these advanced degrees were in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since 1991, Picard has been a professor at the MIT Media Laboratory. She became a full professor in 2005. She leads the Affective Computing Research Group. This group creates tools and devices that can sense and understand emotion signals. Their goal is to make AI systems that respond smartly to how humans are feeling. For example, their research helps create better learning systems. It also helps people with autism communicate better.

Picard also works with other scientists on social robots. She has published important work on digital image processing, pattern recognition, and wearable computers.

Affective Computing Explained

As Picard started building systems to measure emotions, she saw a need for more research. She wanted to explore how emotions play a role in the human brain. She wrote a book called "Affective Computing" to describe this new field. The book explained how to teach machines emotional intelligence.

MIT's press release for her book said that for computers to be truly smart and interact well with us, they need to understand emotions.

Picard explains that humans naturally pick up on emotional clues. For example, a good teacher notices if a student is interested or frustrated. They change how they teach based on these feelings. Teachers know that frustration can make someone give up. They know how to help students at those times. But robots usually don't have this ability.

Picard gave an example to show how understanding emotions would change how robots interact with us: Imagine your robot comes into the kitchen while you are making breakfast. The robot looks happy and says "Good morning." You mumble something it doesn't understand. But the robot notices your face, your voice, smoke from the stove, and you slamming a pot. It figures out you are not having a good morning. So, it changes its own mood to "quiet." This makes its voice lower and softer. It stops being cheerful and avoids unnecessary talk. If you then yell "Ow!" and run your hand under cold water, saying "I can't believe I ruined the sauce," the robot might not understand every word. But it would know from your actions and feelings that you are upset and possibly hurt.

In situations like this, robots need to understand human emotions. This helps them serve their purpose better.

Picard's work has influenced many areas, from video games to law. Other experts have praised her book for setting up a framework for the whole field.

In 2009, Picard helped start Affectiva with Rana el Kaliouby. She was the company's chief scientist for four years. The company used technologies they developed at MIT. In 2013, Picard also helped start Empatica, Inc. This company makes wearable sensors and tools. These tools help people understand and share body changes related to emotions. Her team showed that changes in the emotion system could help find seizures that might be dangerous.

Autism Research

Picard has also done research in the field of autism. Her team created a device called an "emotional-social intelligence prosthesis" (ESP). This device helped people with autism monitor their own facial reactions. This taught them about social cues from others. The device was about 65% accurate at reading eight emotional states from facial expressions and head movements. She shared parts of this technology at a conference on wearable computers.

Emotion Research

Picard has suggested new ways to study emotions. She believes new technologies can help gather emotional information outside of a lab. Devices that measure heart rate and other body changes can be worn easily. This allows emotions to be observed more accurately in real life. She also argues for studying individuals' emotions more closely. She believes that understanding each person's unique emotional patterns is very important.

Religion and Science

Picard grew up without religious beliefs but became a Christian as a young adult. She believes that scientists should not assume that nothing exists beyond what they can measure. She thinks it's likely there is "still something more" to life than what we have discovered. She sees DNA as too complex to have happened by chance. To her, the complexity of life shows "the mark of intervention" from "a much greater mind." She feels her religious beliefs help her work in affective computing. She said that studying how emotions work makes her appreciate how we are made even more.

Picard signed a petition called A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. This petition states that scientists should carefully examine the evidence for Darwin's theory. Picard believes that the media often creates a false choice between intelligent design and evolution. She says that putting people into just one of these groups doesn't help our understanding.

NeurIPS 2024 Conference

At the NeurIPS 2024 conference, Picard gave a speech. She later faced criticism for an example she used about AI. She apologized publicly, saying that mentioning nationality was unnecessary. She deeply regretted that it caused "unintended negative associations." The conference organizers also posted an apology, stating that her slide content did not align with their rules.

Awards

  • Georgia Engineering Foundation Fellowship(s) 1980, '81, '82, '83
  • Society of Women Engineers: "The Outstanding Woman Engineering Student" 1981, '82, '83, '84
  • National Science Foundation Fellow 1984
  • AT&T Bell Laboratories "One Year On Campus" Fellow 1984
  • Georgia Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty Award 1984
  • Voted Omicron Delta Kappa, Georgia Tech and Southeast U. S. "Leader of the Year" 1984
  • AAUW "The Outstanding Georgia Institute of Technology Woman Graduate" 1984
  • IAPR Pattern Recognition Society Best Paper Prize (with Tom Minka) 1991
  • GA Tech College of Engineering "Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award" 1995
  • NEC Career Development Chair in Computers and Communications 1992, '96
  • Assoc. of American Publishers, Inc. Computer Science Book Award, (Hon. Mention) 1997
  • Senior Member of IEEE 2000
  • Creapole's Committee of Honour (Paris) 2002
  • Fellow of IEEE 2005
  • Chamblee High School Hall of Fame 2005
  • Groden Network Distinguished Honorees, Research Award 2008
  • The New York Times "Best Ideas of the Year" (w/el Kaliouby) 2006
  • Popular Science Top Ten Inventions of 2011: A mirror that reads vital signs 2011 (with Ming-Zher Poh and Dan McDuff)
  • Best Paper of the Decade, 2000–2009 IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (with Jennifer Healey) 2013
  • Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation 2014
  • Epilepsy Foundation Innovation Seal of Excellence (with Empatica) 2015
  • CNN's 7 Tech Superheroes to Watch in 2015
  • Association for Psychological Science Fellow 2017
  • National Academy of Engineering 2019
  • ACM Fellow 2021
  • Lombardia è Ricerca Prize 2022
  • Ubicomp 10-Year Impact Award (with Ehsan Hoque, et al.) 2023
  • Trotter Prize of Texas A&M University, 2025

Selected Works

Books

  • J. Tao, T. Tan, and R. W. Picard (Eds.), Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3784, 2005. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg 2005.
  • A. Paiva, R. Prada, and R. W. Picard (Eds.), Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 2007, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4738, 2007. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg 2007.

Articles

  • T. P. Minka and R.W. Picard (1997), "Interactive Learning Using a 'Society of Models,'" Pattern Recognition, Volume 30, No. 4, pp. 565–581, 1997. (Winner of 1997 Pattern Recognition Society Award)
  • R. W. Picard, E. Vyzas & J. Healey, (2001), "Toward machine emotional intelligence: Analysis of affective physiological state", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, (10), 1175-1191.
  • B. Kort, R. Reilly and R. W. Picard (2001), "An Affective Model of Interplay Between Emotions and Learning: Reengineering educational Pedagogy-Building a Learning Companion", in Proceedings of International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2001), August 2001, Madison, WI. (Winner of Best Paper Prize.)
  • J. Healey and R. W. Picard (2005), "Detecting Stress During Real-World Driving Tasks Using Physiological Sensors", IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Volume 6, No. 2, June 2005, pp. 156–166. (Voted "Top 10 best papers of the decade 2000-2009" for IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems)
  • M. E. Hoque, M. Courgeon, J.-C. Martin, B. Mutlu, R. W. Picard, "MACH: My Automated Conversation coacH", 15th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), 8–12 September 2013. (winner of Best Ubiquitous Computing Paper Award from some organization)
  • Rosalind W. Picard, Matteo Migliorini, Chiara Caborni, Francesco Onorati, Giulia Regalia, Daniel Friedman, and Orrin Devinsky. "Wrist sensor reveals sympathetic hyperactivity and hypoventilation before probable SUDEP". Neurology 89, no. 6 (2017): 633-635.
  • Onorati, Francesco, Giulia Regalia, Chiara Caborni, Matteo Migliorini, Daniel Bender, Ming-Zher Poh, Cherise Frazier et al. "Multicenter clinical assessment of improved wearable multimodal convulsive seizure detectors". Epilepsia 58, no. 11 (2017): 1870–1879.

Patents

  • "Method and Apparatus for Relating and Combining Multiple Images of the Same Scene or Object(s)" U.S. Patent 5,706,416 . Issued January 6, 1998. (With Steve Mann.)
  • "Sensing and Display of Skin Conductivity" U.S. Patent 6,415,176 . Issued July 2, 2002. (With Jocelyn Scheirer, Nancy Tilbury and Jonathan Farringdon.)
  • "System and Method for Determining a Workload Level of a Driver" U.S. Patent 7,428,449 . Issued Sep 23, 2008 (with Fehr, Gardner and Hansman).
  • "Washable wearable biosensor" U.S. Patent 8,140,143 . Issued Mar 20, 2012 (with Williams, Fletcher, Eydgahi, Poh, Wilder-Smith, Kim, Dobson, Lee).
  • "Methods and apparatus for Monitoring Patients and Delivering Therapeutic Stimuli" U.S. Patent 8,655,441 . Issued Feb 18, 2014 (with Fletcher, Eydgani and Williams).
  • "Video recommendation based on affect" U.S. Patent 9,106,958 . Issued Aug 11, 2015 (with Kaliouby, Bahgat, Sadowsky and Wilder-Smith).
  • "Using affect within a gaming context" U.S. Patent 9,247,903 . Issued February 2, 2016 (with Bender, Kaliouby, Picard, Sadowsky, Turcot, Wilder-Smith).
  • "Methods and Apparatus for Conversation Coach" U.S. Patent 9,691,296 . Issued Jun 27, 2017 (with Hoque).
  • "Methods and apparatus for physiological measurement using color band photoplethysmographic sensor" U.S. Patent 10,028,669 . Issued Jul 24, 2018 (with Gontarek and McDuff).

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Rosalind Picard para niños

  • Affectiva
  • Affective computing
  • Autism
  • Digital image processing
  • Pattern recognition
  • Social robots
  • Wearable computers
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