Mai Lee Chang, PhD
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute in the School of Computer Science working with Prof. Jodi Forlizzi and Prof. John Zimmerman in the AI-CARING NSF AI Institute that is being led by Dr. Reid Simmons and Dr. Sonia Chernova. I completed my Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin advised by Prof. Andrea Thomaz in 2022. Prior to my Ph.D., I worked as an engineer in the Human Systems Engineering & Development Division at NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.
My interdisciplinary research integrates engineering, behavioral science, and design inquiry. I explore human-agent interaction where an agent can be a robot, conversational agent, or other AI embodiment. I focus on how agents’ behaviors impact user trust, acceptance, and use. I investigate the interplay between user need, trust, and acceptance, particularly how an increase in user need can overcome trust concerns and drive use. Finally, I look at how agents shape and change person-to-person relationships.
My research explores how to design agents that quickly assimilate into human environments, are accepted and used, and are experienced as valuable and meaningful. 1) I aim to enable robotic teammates to easily integrate within human teams to collaborate with people who have different capabilities and preferences. I enable robotic teammates to optimize for the team’s task performance and treat human teammates fairly in single-robot multiple-human teams. 2) I examine these phenomena in complex, multi-stakeholder environments in an NSF-funded AI center project (AI-CARING) focused on adults with mild cognitive impairment and their caregivers.
Email: maileec@andrew.cmu.edu