ACM to publish leading journal of human-robot interaction; Chad Jenkins serves as editor-in-chief

The Journal of Human-Robot Interaction is scheduled to become an ACM publication in January 2018 and will be rebranded as the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. Prof. Chad Jenkins will continue to serve as editor-in-chief.

In recent years, the human-robot interaction field has experienced substantial growth. Research findings at the intersection of robotics, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, haptics, and natural language processing have been responsible for important discoveries and breakthrough technologies across many industries.

The publication was founded in 2012 by Sara Kiesler of Carnegie Mellon University and Michael Goodrich of Brigham Young University, with the support of the HRI Steering Committee, the Journal of Human-Robot Interaction was initially launched to serve as the premier peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal in the field. The journal covers the convergence of technology development and social understanding to capture the full spectrum of robotics. Topics of interest include how people interact with robotic technologies, how to improve these interactions, technologies to enable new kinds of interactions, new design concepts and methods for interactive robots, and the impacts such technologies have on people and society.

Jenkins, along with Co-Editor-in-Chief Selma Šabanović of Indiana University, have set three primary goals for the journal in the coming years, including: 1) Sustaining the intellectual growth of HRI as a field of study (both quantitatively and qualitatively), 2) Enabling timely and productive feedback from readers, and 3) Cultivating new and leading-edge ideas in both robotics and the human-centered sciences.

More information is available in the ACM press release.

Chad is an experimental roboticist focusing on human-robot interaction. His research explores methods that enable robots to learn human skills and in recent years, his work has focused on the exploration of robot systems for assisting disabled people. His work has been supported through prestigious awards, including an NSF PECASE award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship.