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Past Member

Jacqueline M Kory Westlund

Former Research Assistant
Contact Information:
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  • Personal Robots

Jacqueline Kory Westlund is a Ph.D student in Dr. Cynthia Breazeal's Personal Robots Group (PRG) at the MIT Media Lab.

Her research focuses on developing and evaluating social robotic learning companions to support young children's language learning and social and emotional development. She asks questions about how to create more effective robotic learning companions, how children understand social robots, how context and framing affect child-robot interactions, and the ethics of using robots in children's lives.

Jacqueline was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2012-2015 and a Media Lab Learning Innovation Fellowship in 2016-2018 to support her research at MIT.

Prior to coming to the Media Lab, Jacqueline spent a year researching human emotion and learning with Dr. Sidney D’Mello at the University of Notre Dame, and worked at NASA for two summers developing autonomous vehicles and laser space robots. She holds a BA in cognitive science from Vassar College.

For current news, recent publications, and latest projects, see https://www.jakory.com/ and http://robotic.media.mit.edu/news/!

Post Research

Making new (robot) friends

Understanding children's relationships with social robots
Research
Personal Robots

Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
Archived
Research
ML Learning

ML Learning
Publication Research

Tega, A Social Robot

Kory Westlund, J. M., Lee, J., Plummer, L., Faridia, F., Gray, J., Berlin, M., Quintus-Bosz, H., Harmann, R., Hess, M., Dyer, S., dos Santos, K., Adalgeirsson, S., Gordon, G., Spaulding, S., Martinez, M., Das, M., Archie, M., Jeong, S., & Breazeal, C. (2016). Tega: A Social Robot. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: Video Presentations.
Archived
Project Research

Socially Assistive Robotics: An NSF Expedition in Computing

Our mission is to develop the computational techniques that will enable the design, implementation, and evaluation of "relational" robots, …
Archived
Project Research

Personalized Robot Storytelling Companion

Could a social robot collaboratively exchange stories with children as a peer and help improve their linguistic and storytelling skills? We…
Publication Research

Affective Personalization of a Social Robot Tutor for Children's Second Language Skills

Gordon, G., Spaulding, S., Kory Westlund, J., Lee, J., Plummer, L., Martinez, M., Das, M., & Breazeal, C. (2016). Affective Personalization of a Social Robot Tutor for Children's Second Language Skills. Proceedings of the 30th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Palo Alto, CA).
Archived
Project Research

Robot Expressiveness Affects Children's Learning

Prior research with preschool children has established that book reading, especially when children are encouraged to actively process the s…
Archived
Publication Research

Learning a Second Language with a Socially Assistive Robot

Kory Westlund, J.*, Gordon, G.*, Spaulding, S., Lee, J., Plummer, L., Martinez, M., Das, M., & Breazeal, C. (2015). Learning a Second Language with a Socially Assistive Robot. In Proceedings of New Friends: The 1st International Conference on Social Robots in Therapy and Education.
Publication Research

Lessons From Teachers on Performing HRI Studies with Young Children in Schools

Kory Westlund, J. M., Gordon, G., Spaulding, S., Lee, J., Plummer, L., Martinez, M., Das, M., & Breazeal, C. (2016). Lessons From Teachers on Performing HRI Studies with Young Children in Schools. In S. Sabanovic, A. Paiva, Y. Nagai, & C. Bartneck. Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (Christchurch, New Zealand).
Publication Research

Young children treat robots as informants

Breazeal, C., Harris, P., DeSteno, D., Kory, J., Dickens, L., & Jeong, S. (2016). Young children treat robots as informants. Topics in Cognitive Science, pp. 1-11.
Publication Research

A Comparison of children learning from robots, tablets, and people

Kory Westlund, J., Dickens, L., Jeong, S., Harris, P., DeSteno, D., & Breazeal, C. (2015). A Comparison of children learning from robots, tablets, and people. In Proceedings of New Friends: The 1st International Conference on Social Robots in Therapy and Education.
Publication Research

Robotic learning companions for early language development

Kory, J., Jeong, S., & Breazeal, C. L. (2013). Robotic learning companions for early language development. In J. Epps, F. Chen, S. Oviatt, & K. Mase (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th ACM on International conference on multimodal interaction, (pp. 71-72). ACM: New York, NY.
Archived
Project Research

Robotic Learning Companions

The language and literacy skills of young children entering school are highly predictive of their long-term academic success. Children from…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Relational AI

Creating long-term interpersonal interaction and shared experiences with social robots Many of our current projects explore the use of…
Archived
Publication Research

Children use non-verbal cues to learn new words from robots as well as people

Kory Westlund., J. M., Dickens, L., Jeong, S., Harris, P. L., DeSteno, D., & Breazeal, C. L. (2017). Children use non-verbal cues to learn new words from robots as well as people. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction.
Archived
Project Research

Robotic Language Learning Companions

Young children learn language not through listening alone, but through active communication with a social actor. Cultural immersion and con…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Children Use Nonverbal Cues to Learn from Robots

When learning from human partners, infants and young children will pay attention to nonverbal signals, such as gaze and bodily orientation,…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Storytelling Companion

Children’s oral language skills in preschool can predict their academic success later in life. Helping children improve their language and …
Archived
Publication Research

The Interplay of Robot Language Level with Children's Language Learning during Storytelling

Kory Westlund, J., & Breazeal, C. (2015). The Interplay of Robot Language Level with Children's Language Learning during Storytelling. In J. A. Adams, W. Smart, B. Mutlu, & L. Takayama (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: Extended Abstracts (pp. 65-66).
Publication Research

Social agent or machine? The framing of a robot affects people's interactions and expressivity

Kory, J. & Kleinberger, R. (2014). Social agent or machine? The framing of a robot affects people's interactions and expressivity. 2nd Workshop on Applications for Emotional Robots held in conjunction with the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.
Thesis Research

Storytelling with robots: Effects of robot language level on children's language learning

Kory, J. (2014). Storytelling with robots: Effects of robot language level on children's language learning. Master's Thesis, Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Publication Research

A Study to Measure Effects of Framing a Robot as a Social Agent or as a Machine on Children's Social Behavior

Kory Westlund, J. M., Martinez, M., Archie, M., Das, M., & Breazeal, C. (2016). A Study to Measure Effects of Framing a Robot as a Social Agent or as a Machine on Children's Social Behavior. In S. Sabanovic, A. Paiva, Y. Nagai, & C. Bartneck, Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: Late-Breaking Reports (pp. 459-460).
Publication Research

Storytelling with Robots: Learning Companions for Preschool Children's Language Development

Kory, J., & Breazeal, C. (2014). Storytelling with Robots: Learning Companions for Preschool Children’s Language Development. In P. A. Vargas & R. Aylett (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). IEEE: Washington, DC.
Publication Research

Deception, Secrets, Children, and Robots: What’s Acceptable?

Kory Westlund, J., & Breazeal, C. (2015). Deception, Secrets, Children, and Robots: What’s Acceptable? Workshop on The Emerging Policy and Ethics of Human-Robot Interaction, held in conjunction with the 10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.
Publication Research

Transparency, teleoperation, and children's understanding of social robots

Kory Westlund, J. M., & Breazeal, C. (2016). Transparency, teleoperation, and children’s understanding of social robots. In S. Sabanovic, A. Paiva, Y. Nagai, & C. Bartneck, Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: The 11th Annual Human-Robot Interaction Pioneers Workshop, (pp. 625-626). IEEE.
Publication Research

Telling Stories with Green the DragonBot: A Showcase of Children's Interactions Over Two Months

Kory Westlund, J. (2015). Telling Stories with Green the DragonBot: A Showcase of Children's Interactions Over Two Months. In J. A. Adams, W. Smart, B. Mutlu, & L. Takayama (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction: Extended Abstracts (p. 263).
Publication Research

Effects of Framing a Robot as a Social Agent or as a Machine on Children's Social Behavior

Kory Westlund, J. M., Martinez, M., Archie, M., Das, M., & Breazeal, C. (2016). Effects of Framing a Robot as a Social Agent or as a Machine on Children's Social Behavior. In S. Y. Okita, T. Shibata, & B. Mutlu (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (pp. 688-693). IEEE: Washington, DC.
Publication Research

Flat versus expressive storytelling: young children's learning and retention of a social robot's narrative

Kory Westlund, J., Jeong, S., Park, H. W., Ronfard, S., Adhikari, A., Harris, P. L., David DeSteno, & Breazeal, C. (2017). Flat versus expressive storytelling: young children's learning and retention of a social robot's narrative. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.