4. Rana El Kaliouby – Women in Science and Technology
The fields of science and technology are very male-dominated. It is quite obvious that women are a minority. The ratio of men to women on the MIT Media Lab website displays this gap well. Listed under the “Faculty/Academic Research” page, there are 26 men and 4 women. That’s 6.5 times more men than women! Even so, these women are no less capable than their male peers (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008).
Some of Dr. El Kaliouby’s female co workers have equally impressive careers. Dr. Cynthia Breazeal does similar work with robot/human interaction. Breazeal, director of the Personal Robotics Group and professor at MIT, creates robots that are capable of social interaction with humans, and that can learn from interaction with humans (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008). Also an MIT professor, Dr. Pattie Maes founded and directs the Fluid Interfaces Group. The goal of this group is to rethink the “human-machine interactive expereince” by designing intelligent interfaces that will someday become true “accessories” to our minds (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008).
A co-founder of Affectiva, Inc along with Dr. El Kaliouby is MIT professor Rosalind W. Picard. She is the founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group and co-director of Things That Think Consortium. Picard’s research parallels El Kaliouby’s in it’s aim at creating more advanced communication in the world of autism (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008).
Though they are in the minority, El Kaliouby and her peers are jewels in their fields, leading ground-breaking research that will undoubtedly change our methods of communication forever.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2008). Faculty/Academic Research. MIT Media Lab. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://www.media.mit.edu/people/faculty.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2008). Dr. Cynthia Breazeal – Research. MIT Media Lab. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://web.media.mit.edu/ ~cynthiab/research /research.html
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2008). Fluid Interfaces Group. MIT Media Lab. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://ambient.media.mit.edu/projects.php.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2008). Rosalind W. Picard Bio. MIT Media Lab. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/.
