Dr. Alyssa Kubota Receives NSF Grant

Dr. Alyssa Kubota, an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) program. This program provides support to early-career researchers for performing computing research.

Kubota’s project, “AI-Driven Collaborative Goal Setting with Cognitively Assistive Robots”, aims to enable assistive robots to support people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in achieving their real-world goals in longitudinal rehabilitation interventions. The research team will develop human-centered, AI-driven models of goal progress and motivation to provide more personalized and motivational intervention delivery. This approach will entail autonomously adapting robot behavior based on a person’s real-world behavior, generating personalized subgoals to support a person’s overarching rehabilitation goals, and evaluating these models on a social robot that delivers a cognitive intervention in a person’s home.

Ultimately, these contributions will advance the field’s understanding of how robots can conceptualize and adapt their behavior to people with cognitive impairments, grounded in current clinical practice. Kubota hopes this will extend the efficacy of longitudinal health interventions by supporting people in achieving their real-world rehabilitation goals, thereby improving their emotional well-being, promoting autonomy and self-efficacy, and bettering their quality of life.