Julie Shah

Julie Shah is the H.N. Slater Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, co-leader of MIT’s Work of the Future Initiative, and director of the Interactive Robotics Group, which aims to imagine the future of work by designing collaborative robot teammates that enhance human capability. She is expanding the use of human cognitive models for artificial intelligence and has translated her work to manufacturing assembly lines, healthcare applications, transportation and defense. Before joining the faculty, she worked at Boeing Research and Technology on robotics applications for aerospace manufacturing. Prof. Shah has been recognized by the National Science Foundation with a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award and by MIT Technology Review on its 35 Innovators Under 35 list. She was also the recipient of the 2018 IEEE RAS Academic Early Career Award for contributions to human-robot collaboration and transition of results to real world application. She has received international recognition in the form of best paper awards and nominations from the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, and the International Symposium on Robotics. She earned degrees in aeronautics and astronautics and in autonomous systems from MIT and is co-author of the book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration (Basic Books, 2020).