Cornell University, USA

Cornell University is an Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York and New York City. The university is ranked top-20 in the QS World University Rankings. At Cornell, within Design + Environmental Analysis, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and Information Science, the Architectural Robotics Lab (or “ARL”) focuses on the design and evaluation of, specifically, robotic built environments. The Architectural Robotics Lab is home to human-centered, trans-disciplinary research teams sufficiently complex in composition to address problems and opportunities in an increasingly digital society. The lab strives to realize “cyber-human-physical ecosystems” that help us do what we do: work, play, learn, roam, explore, create, interconnect, heal, and age. The novelty of the lab lies in its recognition of the physical, built environment, from furniture to the metropolis, as a next frontier of computing and design.

Keith Evan Green is director of the ARL and full professor at Cornell University in design(DEA), and mechanical engineering (MAE), and Information Science (IS). Green investigates a new frontier in human-machine interaction: meticulously designed, increasingly intelligent, cyber-physical environments that support and augment us at work, school, and home. Green’s book Architectural Robotics: Ecosystems of Bits, Bytes and Biology (MIT Press) defines this emerging field at the interface of design, robotics, HCI, and psychology. (Green's homepage)

Deanna Kocher is a PhD MechE student at Cornell. She has a unique background in integrated engineering, arts, and sciences (IDEAS) from Lehigh University which focused on mechanical engineering, product design, and child psychology. She also spent an extra year of study focused on STS and child development, where she developed a passion for understanding the impact of different technologies on child development. In the lab, her goal is to develop "productive play robots" supporting the social and intellectual development of children. Deanna was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).

Mengni (Ni) Zhang is a PhD DEA student at Cornell the field of Human Behavior and Design. His interests include interactive environments, healthcare architecture, wellness design, and robotics. Before entering the PhD program, Ni worked for five years in San Francisco as a healthcare architect, developing a special interest in interaction and robotics for hospital settings. He holds a bachelor's degree in architecture from Cornell's AAP and a master's degree in design studies from Harvard's GSD with a concentration in urban resilience. He is also madly obsessed with Bach.

Elena Sabinson is a PhD student at Cornell in Design + Environmental Analysis. At Drexel University, where Elena received her MS in Interior Design, Elena was an Assistant Teaching Professor. Prior to grad school at Drexel, Elena earned a BA from Binghamton University, where she studied Philosophy and Creative Writing. Elena is particularly fascinated with emerging technologies and how to implement these new interactions so that they increase empathy. She hopes to contribute to a new ethical landscape of human robot interaction (HRI), and explore the use of biological materials and digital design practices in creative and innovative ways.

Serena Guo is a PhD student at Cornell in Information Science. She just joined the ARL this semester (F’21), coming from New York City form a job as designer of AR/VR systems, and before that, an MArch at Columbia University.