The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Trade and Know-how has chosen 5 new analysis fellows for 2023-24. Now in its third 12 months, the initiative underscores the methods during which business and analysis can collaborate to spur technological innovation.
By way of its partnership with the College of Engineering, Accenture gives 5 annual fellowships awarded to graduate college students with the goal of producing highly effective new insights on the convergence of enterprise and expertise with the potential to remodel society. The 2023-24 fellows will conduct analysis in areas together with synthetic intelligence, sustainability, and robotics.
The 2023-24 Accenture Fellows are:
Yiyue Luo
Yiyue Luo is a PhD candidate who’s growing revolutionary integrations of tactile sensing and haptics, interactive sensing and AI, digital fabrication, and good wearables. Her work takes benefit of current advances in digital manufacturing and AI, and the convergence in superior sensing and actuation mechanisms, scalable digital manufacturing, and rising computational methods, with the aim of making novel sensing and actuation units that revolutionize interactions between individuals and their environments. In previous tasks, Luo has developed tactile sensing attire together with socks, gloves, and vests, in addition to a workflow for computationally designing and digitally fabricating tender textiles-based pneumatic actuators. With the assist of an Accenture Fellowship, she is going to advance her work of mixing sensing and actuating units and discover the event of haptic units that simulate tactile cues captured by tactile sensors. Her final goal is to construct a scalable, textile-based, closed-loop human-machine interface. Luo’s analysis holds thrilling potential to advance ground-breaking functions for good textiles, well being care, synthetic and digital actuality, human-machine interactions, and robotics.
Zanele Munyikwa is a PhD candidate whose analysis explores basis fashions, a category of fashions that types the idea of transformative general-purpose applied sciences (GPTs) akin to GPT4. An Accenture Fellowship will allow Munyikwa to conduct analysis aimed toward illuminating the present and potential affect of basis fashions (together with giant language fashions) on work and duties widespread to “high-skilled” information employees in industries akin to advertising, authorized companies, and medication, during which basis fashions are anticipated to have important financial and social impacts. A main aim of her venture is to look at the affect of AI augmentation on duties like copywriting and long-form writing. A second goal is to discover two main ways in which basis fashions are driving the convergence of artistic and technological industries, specifically: decreasing the price of content material technology and enabling the event of instruments and platforms for training and coaching. Munyikwa’s work has essential implications for the usage of basis fashions in lots of fields, from well being care and training to authorized companies, enterprise, and expertise.
Michelle Vaccaro is a PhD candidate in social engineering techniques whose analysis explores human-AI collaboration with the objectives of growing a deeper understanding of AI-based applied sciences (together with ChatGPT and DALL-E), evaluating their efficiency and evolution, and steering their growth towards societally useful functions, like local weather change mitigation. An Accenture Fellowship will assist Vaccaro’s present work towards two key goals: figuring out synergies between people and AI-based software program to assist design human-AI techniques that tackle persistent issues higher than present approaches; and investigating functions of human-AI collaboration for forecasting technological change, particularly for renewable vitality applied sciences. By integrating the traditionally distinct domains of AI, techniques engineering, and cognitive science with a variety of industries, technical fields, and social functions, Vaccaro’s work has the potential to advance particular person and collective productiveness and creativity in all these areas.
Chonghuan Wang is a PhD candidate in computational science and engineering whose analysis employs statistical studying, econometrics concept, and experimental design to create environment friendly, dependable, and sustainable discipline experiments in varied domains. In his present work, Wang is making use of statistical studying methods akin to on-line studying and bandit concept to check the effectiveness of recent therapies, vaccinations, and well being care interventions. With the assist of an Accenture Fellowship, he’ll design experiments with the particular goal of understanding the trade-off between the lack of a affected person’s welfare and the accuracy of estimating the remedy impact. The outcomes of this analysis may assist to save lots of lives and comprise illness outbreaks throughout pandemics like Covid-19. The advantages of enhanced experiment design and the gathering of high-quality information prolong effectively past well being care; for instance, these instruments may assist companies optimize person engagement, take a look at pricing impacts, and improve the utilization of platforms and companies. Wang’s analysis holds thrilling potential to harness statistical studying, econometrics concept, and experimental design in assist of sturdy companies and the better social good.
Aaron Michael West Jr. is a PhD candidate whose analysis seeks to reinforce our information of human motor management and robotics. His work goals to advance rehabilitation applied sciences and prosthetic units, in addition to enhance robotic dexterity. His earlier work has yielded precious insights into the human skill to extract data solely from visible shows. Particularly, he demonstrated people’ skill to estimate stiffness based mostly solely on the visible remark of movement. These insights may advance the event of software program functions with the identical functionality (e.g., utilizing machine studying strategies utilized to video information) and should allow roboticists to develop enhanced movement management such {that a} robotic’s intention is perceivable by people. An Accenture Fellowship will allow West to proceed this work, in addition to new investigations into the performance of the human hand to assist within the design of a prosthetic hand that higher replicates human dexterity. By advancing understandings of human bio- and neuro-mechanics, West’s work has the potential to assist main advances in robotics and rehabilitation applied sciences, with profound impacts on human well being and well-being.