Date: October 15, 2025
Speaker: Pragathi Praveena
Title: Designing Robotic and AI Systems for Groups and Teams
Abstract: Pragathi will share insights from her work on designing social and collaborative systems that integrate intelligent agents to enhance how groups and teams work together. Her talk will focus on key findings from her dissertation, which introduced Periscope — a robotic camera system that allows a remote expert to provide real-time guidance to a less experienced worker performing complex physical tasks (such as wiring a car stereo). In collaboration with Boeing, she explored Periscope’s potential to support remote workforce training in manufacturing environments. In addition, she will briefly highlight her current work on designing technologies that foster care and connection within social networks for older adults.
Bio: Pragathi Praveena is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robotics Institute at CMU, where she contributes to the NSF AI-CARING Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on designing interactive robotic and AI systems that enhance collaboration in group settings. She has been recognized as an MIT EECS Rising Star, as well as an HRI Pioneer and RSS Pioneer. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a researcher at the Xerox Research Center India and earned a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.