Maja Matarić Elected to the NAE

The National Academy of Engineering today announced that Maja Matarić, Chan Soon-Shiong Chair and distinguished professor, Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics, was elected as one of its members. Election to the NAE is the highest professional honor for engineers.

NAE members are elected by their peers, and the honor is reserved for outstanding engineering accomplishments. Matarić was recognized for contributions to human-robot interaction and socially assistive robotics.

According to the NAE’s press release, she is one of 128 new members (less than half of whom are from academia) and 22 international members in the NAE’s Class of 2025, bringing the total U.S. membership to 2,487 and the number of international members to 336. With her election, 24 USC Viterbi faculty have been elected to the NAE since 2008.

“Maja has been a pioneer in the area of socially assistive robotics and more generally in human-robot interaction. We are thrilled to see her recognized for her outstanding work across research, teaching and outreach. It is also fitting that her election adds a continuing thread to the excellence of robotics at USC, started by the late George Bekey (also an NAE member) and continuing with so many USC Viterbi talented roboticists,” said USC Viterbi Dean Yannis C. Yortsos.

Matarić, the founding director of the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center, is known for her groundbreaking work in the field of socially assistive robotics, where her research lab designs intelligent robots that interact with humans to provide personalized assistance. Her research has been applied in various domains, including therapy, rehabilitation, education, and eldercare.

Pioneering the study of socially assistive robotics, or “robots that care,”  her work in the USC School of Advanced Computing  combines robotics, artificial intelligence, human-centered design, neuroscience, and psychology, to develop robots that can help people with physical or cognitive differences, including helping children in the hospital to communicate about pain level, or fostering learning for children on the autism spectrum.

Publishing papers in prominent journals, Matarić has pushed both the field and people within it forward, mentoring graduate-level students who have gone on to prestigious academic institutions and companies, as well as nearly a thousand undergraduates who have discovered research in her lab.

One of her Interaction lab’s more recent projects is a grant from the NIH that will test the use of socially assistive robots to address student anxiety by conducting a randomized controlled trial here at USC. This project is exemplary of her lab in that the students she has mentored “pass it on” and are focused on employing robots to help others.

Speaking about the election to NAE, Matarić said, “I am deeply honored to now be in the NAE with Yannis Yortsos, who has been an unwaveringly supportive dean and role model with his leadership of kindness and integrity, and Rodney Brooks, who was a great PhD advisor and role model with his intellectual fearlessness and reinvention.  I am also grateful to my colleagues and to my amazing past, current, and future students who fill the work of research with great joy and deeper purpose.”

Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Barack Obama, and in 2023, was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Published on February 11th, 2025

Last updated on February 11th, 2025