ITA Grantee Biographies
Justine Cassell, Ph.D.
Professor, Media Technology & Society
Departments of Communication Studies &
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Northwestern University
justine@northwestern.edu
(847) 491-3534
http://ctsb.northwestern.edu
http://articulab.northwestern.edu
http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine
Professor, Media Technology & Society
Departments of Communication Studies &
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Northwestern University
justine@northwestern.edu
(847) 491-3534
http://ctsb.northwestern.edu
http://articulab.northwestern.edu
http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine
Justine Cassell is the director of the Center for Technology & Social Behavior and the graduate director of the new Technology and Social Behavior joint PhD in Communication and Computer Science. She holds courtesy appointments in Learning Sciences, Linguistics, and Psychology. Dr. Cassell previously held a tenured associate professor appointment at the MIT Media Lab where she directed the Gesture and Narrative Language Research Group. She won the Edgerton prize at MIT in 2001, was the recipient of the AT&T Research Chair at Northwestern in 2006, and in 2008 was awarded the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision award for Leadership. In between, her work has been awarded a number of best paper prizes, and has received various other kinds of accolades. She holds a master's degree in Literature from the Université de Besançon (France), a master's degree in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and a double Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, in Psychology and in Linguistics.
Cassell's research originated in the study of human-human conversation and storytelling. Which she adopted into examining how computational systems can participate in these activities. Her technological focus led her to deconstruct the linguistic elements of conversation and storytelling to embody machines with conversational, social and narrative intelligence so that they could interact with humans in human-like ways. Increasingly, however, her research has come to address the impact and benefits of technologies such as these on learning and communication. In particular, Cassell is credited with developing the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using both language and nonverbal behavior. Cassell has investigated the role that the ECA can play in children's lives, as a Story Listening System (SLS): peer support for learning language and literacy skills. She has employed linguistic and psychological analyses to look at the effects of online and ECA conversations in diverse groups of young people including different cultural groups and subjects with autism.
Selected publications:
Tartaro, A. & Cassell, J. (2008). "Playing with Virtual Peers: Bootstrapping Contingent Discourse in Children with Autism" Proceedings of ICLS, June 24-28, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Cassell, J., Tartaro, A. (2007) Intersubjectivity in Human-Agent Interaction. Interaction Studies; 8 (3): 391-410.
Tartaro, A., & Cassell, J. (2006). "Using Virtual Peer Technology as an Intervention for Children with Autism". Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp. 231-262.
Tartaro, A., & Cassell, J. (2006). "Authorable Virtual Peers for Autism Spectrum Disorders." Proceedings of the Workshop on Language-Enabled Educational Technology at the 17th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI06), August 28-31, Riva del Garda, Italy.
Cassell's research originated in the study of human-human conversation and storytelling. Which she adopted into examining how computational systems can participate in these activities. Her technological focus led her to deconstruct the linguistic elements of conversation and storytelling to embody machines with conversational, social and narrative intelligence so that they could interact with humans in human-like ways. Increasingly, however, her research has come to address the impact and benefits of technologies such as these on learning and communication. In particular, Cassell is credited with developing the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA), a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using both language and nonverbal behavior. Cassell has investigated the role that the ECA can play in children's lives, as a Story Listening System (SLS): peer support for learning language and literacy skills. She has employed linguistic and psychological analyses to look at the effects of online and ECA conversations in diverse groups of young people including different cultural groups and subjects with autism.
Selected publications:
Tartaro, A. & Cassell, J. (2008). "Playing with Virtual Peers: Bootstrapping Contingent Discourse in Children with Autism" Proceedings of ICLS, June 24-28, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Cassell, J., Tartaro, A. (2007) Intersubjectivity in Human-Agent Interaction. Interaction Studies; 8 (3): 391-410.
Tartaro, A., & Cassell, J. (2006). "Using Virtual Peer Technology as an Intervention for Children with Autism". Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., pp. 231-262.
Tartaro, A., & Cassell, J. (2006). "Authorable Virtual Peers for Autism Spectrum Disorders." Proceedings of the Workshop on Language-Enabled Educational Technology at the 17th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI06), August 28-31, Riva del Garda, Italy.
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