Dr Wafa Johal receives Women in AI Award for AI in Education

Dr Wafa Johal, an ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Computing and Information Systems, has been awarded the 2023 Women in AI Award for 'AI in Education'.

The award honours women in the Asia-Pacific region who are working, leading, researching, creating, or innovating in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Dr Johal's research in Human-Robot Interaction aims to enable robots to interact with humans autonomously and intuitively. To this end, she combines social signal processing, affective and cognitive reasoning, machine learning and the design of novel interfaces for human-robot shared understanding. Two of her recent works focused on the use of tangible robots in teaching and rehabilitation; and on the development of augmented reality for robots’ learning.

Dr Johal said “I am honoured to receive this award. This recognition reinforces my commitment in leveraging robotics and AI to transform education and empower educators by creating personalised learning experiences for learners.”

The Women in AI Awards are a significant acknowledgement in developing the credibility and exposure for women in AI in the Asia-Pacific. Women in AI is a non-profit organisation founded in 2016 to work towards inclusive AI that benefits global society and promotes empowerment, knowledge and active participation through education, research, events and blogging.