Who is
this diva?
Dr. Justine Cassell is fascinated by human language. Using her technology skills, she created life-size, computer-generated people she calls “Conversational Agents.” These “agents” act a lot like real people. If you ask them a question, they can give you an answer, or tell you that they don’t know the answer. They can also laugh, blink their eyes, tell stories and give directions. Someday these “agents” may be used in schools the way students use books and computers today.
What
do you do at work?
My job is kind of complicated--I’m
a professor in two different departments. I’m the
Director of the Technology and Social Behavior group,
and a professor in Computer Science and in Communication
Studies. When I’m wearing my Communication Studies
professor hat, I sit around and reflect on how people
think and how they interact with one another. When I wear
my Computer Science professor hat, I build computer technology.
And both hats mean that I teach classes to college students
and to graduate students. Of course, I don’t really
think about different things in different buildings or
on different days, and so what I really do in my research
is to use technology to understand how people communicate
and how children acquire language. And I use my studies
of human communication to build more advanced computers
that can interact better with us. So, for example, my
team of graduate students and faculty and I built the
very first speaking and gesturing virtual human.
Also, I took last year off and traveled around the world--I
visited 21 different countries on five continents--for
a project that's very close to my heart. It's called the
Junior Summit.
How does your job help other people?
In 1998, I directed a project for children around the
world called the Junior Summit, and gathered a little
over 3,000 children from 149 different countries online.
We handed out some computers and we handed out Internet
connections, built an online forum.
It is now almost five years later and last year I traveled
around the world visiting almost 100 of the children who
had participated in the Junior Summit to see whether it
has made a difference to their lives. I wanted to see
whether they acquired a belief in their own ability to
be agents of change. That is what our goal was, to give
children a voice. It's just about giving voice to girls,
to children from developing nations, to all people in
both metaphorical and concrete senses.
So in developing nations, we need to give kids a sense
that they are self-efficacious, that they can produce
change. But it could have had the opposite effect. It's
possible that what it did was teach kids that they're
little cogs in a big wheel and that they're never going
to amount to anything.
I applied for funding to go around the world and visit
the kids and talk to them about their lives today and
collect some follow-up data on their communities and their
beliefs about themselves.
They're extraordinary kids.
Do you work alone or with
a team?
I do most of my work with teams
of other people.
With my graduate students, I film people having conversations,
and then we sit in front of the VCR to study how the people
talk to each other--how they use hand gestures, and head
movements and other body language to communicate. And,
on the basis of what we learn from the videos, we build
Embodied Conversational Agents. These Agents are life-sized
computer-generated figures that are captured on a screen
and respond with appropriate speech, body movements, and
facial expressions to the behaviors of a human standing
in front of them.
My team and I have integrated these intelligent agents
in the design of educational tools for children such as
Sam, a 3-D, interactive storyteller that becomes a virtual
peer for a child.
Currently, my students and I are working on MACK, a kind
of kiosk or information booth that you can just walk up
to and ask questions and the virtual person will give
you directions and tell you where to find what you’re
looking for.
What's
the best part of your job?
I love my job! I love working with
students and teaching, and I love building things and
trying to get them to work, and I love talking to people
about my work.
I started out studying English Literature and then switched
fields to study Linguistics and then switched fields again
to study Psychology, and then I found myself doing Computer
Science. I think my life is a good lesson for young people
who are worried that they don’t know what they want
to be when they grow up--they can start out doing one
thing, and then change, and each job they do will be better
because of the job they did before. And I hope reading
about me also shows that there are lots of paths into
technology--you don’t have to start out as a math-geek
to end up in Computer Science or other technology-related
fields!
What's
the worst part of your job?
I taught at MIT for nine years before
moving to Northwestern. And when I first arrived on the
MIT campus, I had this odd feeling that something was
missing--that something I was used to seeing around me
simply wasn't there. And I couldn't figure out what was
missing. Finally, I realized what it was: there were just
vastly fewer women around me at MIT than I was used to!
Because I work in computer science, which is a field where
there aren’t equal numbers of mean and women, I've
had many experiences where people have assumed that I'm
somebody's secretary, or student, rather than being the
professor. In fact, a number of times people have even
said "you don't look like a professor" or "you
don't look like a technologist" (whatever that means!).
One of the reasons I would like to see more women in technology
and science is so that other women won't have these experiences.
Where
do you see yourself in 10 years?
I would like to be doing just exactly
what I do now: teaching and figuring out how people communicate
and building things.
What
do you do when you're not at work?
Because I travel a lot, for example
for my Junior Summit project, or to give talks, I have
friends all over the world.
So, my work time and play time are all mixed together.
Even at other times, though, I love travelling to obscure
places, eating obscure foods, learning about new cultures
and meeting new people.
And, when I'm in one place, I cook a lot in my spare time--another
kind of making things!—and go dancing.
What advice would you give
a girl about the I.T. field?
Two pieces of advice for girls and women who are really
just starting: YOU CAN'T BREAK IT and MAKE IT YOURS. That
is, don’t worry about breaking the computer or the
software or whatever--just go to it, and explore and experiment
until you understand it. And, if something doesn’t
work the way you want, change it until it does fit you.
And for all girls and women learning about technology
and computing: don't take anything for granted, and don't
think you have to fit into the status quo to succeed.
Just because a computer today is a square box on a desk,
doesn't mean you can't turn it into a river of bits flowing
across a piece of high-tech fabric.
And, if you get told that in order to be a computer scientist
you have to love theory, or programming languages, or
one of the other topics that are taught in school…don't
believe it.
If you feel like you can make technology or computers
do something totally different, then go for it! So many
young women tell me that, even though they love technology,
they don't "see themselves" in Computer Science.
I reply: make Computer Science LOOK LIKE YOU.
What
were your hobbies when you were 11-14?
As a kid, I was very interested in biology and natural
sciences, but I was really bad at math. I wanted to be
a doctor. It was making sense to me that I'd make a good
doctor, but it was making less sense that I would make
a good medical student.
I was born pretty much a word person. I was asking questions
about words even as I was learning how to talk. By the
time I was seven or eight, I kept a wordbook in which
I would write good words. My parents would say, "Now,
why is that a good word?" and I would say, "It
just is." One of them was "sphygmomanometer,"
what they take your blood pressure with. Another was "floccinaucinihilipilification."
That means the anxious picking at dust on the bedclothes
done by an ill person. I just loved words, and as I grew
older I loved writing and I stayed up all night and read
novels trying to finish them in one night.
Describe technology you
wish was available now.
I'd like to extend the technology
for virtual beings so that they can get to know us, and
become friends over time. Like an imaginary playmate,
but a virtual one instead!
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