Maja J Mataric' is the Senior Associate Dean for Research. She is responsible for research development, research administration, and technology transfer. She serves as liaison to funding organizations, communicates research opportunities to faculty, facilitates formation of research centers and interdisciplinary research teams, and advises junior faculty on research development.  She also coordinates interdisciplinary research activities, serves as a liaison to the Office of Technology Licensing, and oversees the Aviation Safety and Security Program , the Western Region Application Center and the USC Engineering Technology Transfer Center.

 

Dr. Mataric' is Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience, the founding director of the USC Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems and the co-director of the USC Robotics Research Lab. She received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Kansas in 1987, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990 and 1994, respectively. Dr. Mataric joined USC in 1997 and was promoted to Professor in 2006. She is a recipient of the Okawa Foundation Award, an NSF Career Award, the MIT TR100 Innovation Award, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award, and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Service Award and the Junior Research Award. She is a senior member of IEEE and she was featured in the documentary movie "Me & Isaac Newton." Her research into socially assistive robotics is aimed at endowing robots with the ability to help people through individual assistance and multi-robot team cooperation. She is currently serving as President of the USC Academic Senate and is on the Joint Senate-Provost University Research Committee. She recently chaired the Viterbi School's Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) Committee.