The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Trade and Know-how has introduced 5 new analysis fellows for 2023-24. Now in its third 12 months, the initiative underscores the methods through which business and analysis can collaborate to spur technological innovation.
By way of its partnership with the College of Engineering, Accenture supplies 5 annual fellowships awarded to graduate college students with the purpose of producing highly effective new insights on the convergence of enterprise and know-how 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 progressive integrations of tactile sensing and haptics, interactive sensing and AI, digital fabrication, and sensible wearables. Her work takes benefit of latest advances in digital manufacturing and AI, and the convergence in superior sensing and actuation mechanisms, scalable digital manufacturing, and rising computational strategies, with the purpose of making novel sensing and actuation gadgets that revolutionize interactions between individuals and their environments. In previous initiatives, Luo has developed tactile sensing attire together with socks, gloves, and vests, in addition to a workflow for computationally designing and digitally fabricating comfortable textiles-based pneumatic actuators. With the help of an Accenture Fellowship, she is going to advance her work of mixing sensing and actuating gadgets and discover the event of haptic gadgets that simulate tactile cues captured by tactile sensors. Her final purpose is to construct a scalable, textile-based, closed-loop human-machine interface. Luo’s analysis holds thrilling potential to advance ground-breaking functions for sensible 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) equivalent to GPT4. An Accenture Fellowship will allow Munyikwa to conduct analysis aimed toward illuminating the present and potential impression of basis fashions (together with massive language fashions) on work and duties frequent to “high-skilled” data staff in industries equivalent to advertising and marketing, authorized providers, and drugs, through which basis fashions are anticipated to have vital financial and social impacts. A main purpose of her undertaking is to watch the impression of AI augmentation on duties like copywriting and long-form writing. A second purpose 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 schooling and coaching. Munyikwa’s work has essential implications for the usage of basis fashions in lots of fields, from well being care and schooling to authorized providers, enterprise, and know-how.
Michelle Vaccaro is a PhD candidate in social engineering methods 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 help Vaccaro’s present work towards two key aims: figuring out synergies between people and AI-based software program to assist design human-AI methods that deal with 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, methods 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 numerous domains. In his present work, Wang is making use of statistical studying strategies equivalent to on-line studying and bandit concept to check the effectiveness of latest therapies, vaccinations, and well being care interventions. With the help of an Accenture Fellowship, he’ll design experiments with the precise purpose 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 might assist to avoid wasting lives and comprise illness outbreaks throughout pandemics like Covid-19. The advantages of enhanced experiment design and the gathering of high-quality knowledge prolong properly past well being care; for instance, these instruments might assist companies optimize consumer engagement, take a look at pricing impacts, and improve the utilization of platforms and providers. Wang’s analysis holds thrilling potential to harness statistical studying, econometrics concept, and experimental design in help of robust companies and the higher social good.
Aaron Michael West Jr. is a PhD candidate whose analysis seeks to boost our data of human motor management and robotics. His work goals to advance rehabilitation applied sciences and prosthetic gadgets, in addition to enhance robotic dexterity. His earlier work has yielded invaluable insights into the human capacity to extract data solely from visible shows. Particularly, he demonstrated people’ capacity to estimate stiffness primarily based solely on the visible statement of movement. These insights might advance the event of software program functions with the identical functionality (e.g., utilizing machine studying strategies utilized to video knowledge) 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 help 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 help main advances in robotics and rehabilitation applied sciences, with profound impacts on human well being and well-being.