Robot is 100!

The Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles and the UCLA Library coordinated this virtual panel discussion Robot is 100! exploring the influence of the sci-fi play "R.U.R." on many art forms and the future of robotics.

Speakers

Maja Matarić is a Chan Soon-Shiong Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics at USC, founding director of the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center and interim Vice President of Research at USC. Her PhD and MS are from MIT, BS from the University of Kansas. She is Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, and AAAI, recipient of the US Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics & Engineering Mentoring from President Obama, the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award, NSF Career Award, MIT TR35 Innovation Award, and IEEE Robotics and Autonomous Systems Early Career Awards. She has a long history of being active in K-12 STEM and diversity outreach. A pioneer of socially assistive robotics, her team’s research is developing personalized human-robot interaction methods for convalescence, rehabilitation, training, and education that have been validated in autism, stroke, Alzheimer’s, healthy elderly, and many other domains (robotics.usc.edu/interaction/). She is also co-founder of Embodied, Inc.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro is a Hugo and Locus finalist with some forty stories published in professional magazines and numerous anthologies, including Analog, Galaxy's Edge, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, and volumes such as The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, Cyber World, The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories, Humanity 2.0, This Way to the End Times, Shades Within Us, The Unquiet Dreamer: A Tribute to Harlan Ellison, 18 Wheels of Science Fiction, Overruled!, It Came from the Multiplex, and Seasons Between Us. Alvaro's Rhysling-nominated poetry has appeared in markets like Apex and Star*Line, while his more than one hundred reviews, essays, and interviews have been published in venues like Clarkesworld, Locus, Tor.com, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Strange Horizons and Foundation.

Jaroslav Veis is a much sought-after Czech journalist, freelance writer, scriptwriter, translator and editor. He attained his degree in Journalism at the Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Journalism. As a science fiction enthusiast, he is the author of five sci-fi short story collections published in a time span of more than four decades, starting with "Experiment protřetí planetu" (Experiment for the Third Planet, 1976), and translated a wide range of authors, such as Isaac Asimov, Brian W. Aldiss, etc. He also writes essays on science, some of which were collected in “How the World Holds Together (“Čím drží svět pohromadě“)”, which he co-wrote and edited. He wrote TV scripts for “Futuroskop I, II,” a Czech TV series on science, technology and history of inventions. Veis was also an Editor-in-Chief of one of the most recognized Czech newspapers Lidové noviny, and served as the Editor of Fiction of another popular Czech newspaper Mladá Fronta. Between 1993-94, he was a Fellow at the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. He also served for over a decade as the Chief Advisor to the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. He widely publishes on politics, and among his many achievements are the translations to Czech language, for example a book of Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat” and Fareed Zakaria’s “In Defense of a Liberal Education.”

Cole Remmen is a PhD candidate in the Theater Studies program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He graduated summa cum laude with distinction in spring 2016 from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts and a minor in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture. Cole has also taken numerous courses exploring his passion for physics, astrophysics, and mathematics. A recipient of several awards for achievement in acting, playwriting, academics, and leadership, Cole has directed and performed in numerous productions and workshops with the UCSB Department of Theater and Dance, the University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, as well as Theater Latté Da and Theater Arts Caltech. In addition to his strong background in musical theatre and vocal performance, Cole is an instrumentalist with training in piano, which he studied formally for 12 years, and saxophone.

Moderator

Jaroslav Olša Jr is a Czech diplomat whose posts include those of Ambassador to Zimbabwe (2000–2006), South Korea (2008–2014) and the Philippines (2014–2018), and Consul General in Los Angeles (2020–current); author of books on history, art and literature of Asia and Africa. He is also a science fiction editor, translator and bibliographer.