The Técnico alumna Iolanda Leite (Computer Science and Engineering – Taguspark campus) has always been interested in Tamagotchis and Furby robots, and how they worked. Nowadays, she is still fascinated by them and that is reflected in a successful career abroad, at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where she is an Assistant Professor and Researcher.

Iolanda Leite entered Técnico – Taguspark campus in 2002. “There was a very familiar environment among students, teachers and non-teaching staff. Those times were quite intense”, she says when looking back on those days. “I have very good memories, especially every time we were about to finish a project. I made friends for life in those times”, she recalls.

The passion for robotics arises when she was still a Técnico student attending Artificial Intelligence or Intelligent Agents course units. “The projects were very interesting and the professors inspired me a lot”, she shares. During her MSc degree, she chose to major in Intelligent Systems, “it was probably at that point that I have seriously considered a research career in this area”, she shares.

A career beyond borders

The opportunity to collaborate with the Group of AI for People and Society (GAIPS) arose while she was doing her master’s and extended throughout her PhD, allowing her to participate in EU projects and to deepen her passion for robotics. “The network of contacts that I established during that time and the visibility of my work allowed me to do research abroad and to get where I am today”, highlights the alumna.

Before settling in Stockholm, where she has been pursuing her career, Iolanda Leite worked at Disney Research, a research laboratory funded by Walt Disney Imagineering, in the Language-based Character Interaction group. “Our research area focused on the dialogue between children and artificial characters – robots or virtual agents. Our work ranged from the development of algorithms that would allow these interactions in a natural and fun way to the evaluation of the experience of younger users when interacting with the prototypes”, she shares.

“At that time, we had a very academic environment at Disney Research – in fact, we were actually working at the Carnegie Melon University campus, in Pittsburgh”, she recalls. “Project motivation was based on Disney’s business strategy. The main goal was not to work in projects with an immediate return, but rather to develop technologies that could be useful for the company in the long term. I learned a lot of things, and I had a lot of fun”, highlights the alumna.

She received her PhD degree from Yale University and, in 2017, she had the opportunity to teach and do research at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where she is currently an associate professor and does cutting-edge research in the area of social robotics, in the Language-based Character Interaction Group.

Iolanda Leite seeks to build autonomous social robots that can capture, learn from and respond appropriately to the subtle dynamics of real-world situations, allowing for truly useful and efficient long-term interactions with people. “We are interested to know what happens after the first contacts [between the robot and the user], where there is inevitably the initial ‘effect of novelty’”, explains the Técnico alumna. “We look at this issue not only from the point of view of how people perceive robots after different types of interactions, but also how to develop algorithms that allow social robots to act in these situations”, she stresses.

Improving human-robot interaction

Will robots be able to show emotions and be more friendly? The answer to this question is desired by many and even though Iolanda Leite believes that it will be possible, she recalls that more important than that “is the fact that they are able to understand the emotions of people around them so that they can take the most appropriate decisions”.

Although it is difficult to predict the evolution of this area, the Técnico alumna believes that social robotics “will be spread a little bit everywhere. Not only where there are social robots, but also in every place where there are robots around people,” she shares.

In fact, Iolanda Leite has an overall positive view on “recent developments in robotics and artificial intelligence” and how these “may have an impact on society”, but she is perfectly aware that “not everything is positive”. “There is still a lot of work to be done. Not just in the more technical areas, but also in the social sciences, in order to understand the impact of technology – robots and more – on our lives”, she stresses.

Iolanda Leite is also an enthusiast for teaching – “I really enjoy teaching, talking to students and understand their motivations and future ambitions at a professional level”, she says.

In 2020, the Técnico alumna won the Future Research Leaders grant from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research.