Building the Robotic Brain: Dr Ada-Rhodes Short curates Real Scientists
Real Scientists is delighted to be back in the world of robotics with Dr Ada-Rhodes Short (@the_ada_rhodes), a post-doctoral researcher at Texas A&M University specializing in computational cognition and robotics. She chatted with Real Scientists about her life and work so far:
Welcome to Real Scientists! Can you tell us how you got into science?
For as long as I can remember I wanted to grow up to make robots and somehow I got lucky enough to do that. However I took a really winding path to get there that involved everything from designing pump shafts for water wells to using computers to reconstruct broken fossils.
What got you into robotics?
R2-D2 was one of the first “robots” I ever saw and I fell in love with him and wanted him to be real so bad. I worked on BB-8 at Sphero and Misty at Misty Robotics which let me build the bodies of the robots that live in my imagination, but I am still working on making the mind of a robot that can live on its own and deal with all the complexity and chaos of reality. My specialization is in design, decision making, and computational cognition (building robot brains that work more like human brains). For my masters and PhD I looked at how we can make autonomous systems that at better at responding to dangers of an uncontrolled environment. The crowning achievement of this work was creating and testing a method inspired by psychology and decision theory for making a robot brain that could manage a simulated Martian exploration mission involving multiple rovers operating in unpredictable and hazardous conditions.
That is so incredibly cool! What are you working on right now?
Currently I am a postdoc in the Texas A&M Aerospace Engineering department working with Dr. Dani Selva on finding ways to make it easier for humans to work together with machines on hard problems. Because I build robot brains that are based on human brains my work doesn’t just let us build better robots, it also helps us learn more about ourselves. My work is an active practice in developing empathy and understanding and trying to figure out why we make the decisions we do.
In additional to my academic research I have worked on multiple award winning consumer robotics products including Sphero’s App Enabled BB-8 and the home robot Misty.
What do you get up to when you’re not in the lab?
I am the co-host of the podcast Totally Trans: Searching for the Trans Canon where we talk about trans and queer history and draw parallels between it and pop-culture figures.
I am also an award winning activist who co-founded the first LGBTQ+ student group at the world’s largest Baylor University (which is still going strong despite it still being against the rules), and I started a large mutual aid project in Oregon that has helped provide trans people with food, clothing, emergency housing, and financial assistance. Cooking is my favorite recreational activity and I really enjoy researching techniques, writing my own recipes, and perfecting dishes.
What’s your ideal day off?
My ideal day off is waking up early and drinking coffee on top of a hill while watching the sunrise before going rolling skating with my friends and then cooking a delicious meal and cuddling up with a good movie.
Dr Ada-Rhodes Short, welcome to Real Scientists!
