Our Team
Dr. Mohammad Mahoor
Dr. Mahoor is an Assistant Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Denver. Dr. Mahoor's research is trans-disciplinary and lies in the area of computer vision and particularly developing robust pattern recognition methods that are applied in other research domains including but not limited to affective computing, developmental psychology, socially assistive robotics, and medical image analysis. In this ongoing longitudinal pilot study, Dr. Mahoor and his research team are investigating how humanoid robots such as NAO and ZENO can successfully be used to improve the directed eye gaze skill and joint attention in children with high functioning autism (HFA) ASD and Asperger Syndrome (AS).
Dr. Anibal Gutierrez
Dr. Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology department at Florida International University and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with experience in the assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior and in the development of adaptive skills for individuals with autism. Dr. Gutierrez’s current research interests focus on variables related to treatment effectiveness for individuals with autism well as the relationship between joint attention and preference for social reinforcers.
Robots
Students
S. Mohammad Mavadati - Research Assistant, PhD Candidate
Mohammad Mavadati is a PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at Computer Vision and Machine Learning lab in University of Denver. His research interests focus on Spontaneous Facial Expression Analysis and Human Machine Interaction (HMI). He believes that the Assistive Robots and Technology can bring more color to the lives of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and can resolve some of their challenges in their social interactions.
Michelle Salvador - Research Assistant, PhD Candidate
Michelle Salvador is a Mechatronics Ph.D student at the University of Denver and has teamed up with Zeno as his programmer for use in investigation. Working with Zeno and future robotic systems she will create, her graduate research focuses on constructing and understanding the needs for creating expressive feedback for facial communication improvement in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Sophia Silver - Coordinator,
BA candidate
Sophia Silver is a BA candidate majoring in psychology and minoring in sociology at the university of Denver. She plans to continue on to get her PhD in child psychology and to continue her focus on autism. Within this research she serves to coordinate the research by scheduling sessions, recruitment and maintaining a collaborative research environment for her and her colleagues. She works to improve social and facial expression communication skills for children on the ASD.
Huanghao Feng - Research Assistant, MS
Huanghao (Howard) Feng is an alumnus of the University of Denver (DU) who received his Masters Degree in Spring of 2014. During his time at DU he studied the feasibility and effectiveness of using NAO as a social robot to model and improve the social response and behavior of children with autism. Along with Mohammad and Sophia, he designed and developed two protocols with various types of games mainly targeted in improving eye contact and gaze responses.
Kris Douglass - Robot Operator,
BSc candidate
Kris Douglass is an undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science at the University of Denver. Along with her additional studies in computer engineering and future goal of becoming a software developer she was chosen by the team to become Zeno's robot operator and therapy assistant.