maya cakmak

I am the Robert E. Dinning Career Development Associate Professor at the University of Washington, Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering, where I direct the Human-Centered Robotics Lab. I hold a B.Sc. degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and a M.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from the Middle East Technical Univesity in Turkey, where I started doing research in Robotics at the Kovan Lab, with my advisor Erol Sahin. I received my Ph.D. in Robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2012, after working five years at the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab with my advisor Andrea L. Thomaz. Afterwards, I spent a year as a post-doctoral research fellow at Willow Garage, Inc. working with Leila Takayama. My research interests are in human-robot interaction, end-user programming, and assistive robotics. I aim to develop robots that can be programmed and controlled by a diverse group of users with unique needs and preferences to do useful tasks.