We Robot 2014 presentations feature Discussants and Moderators who are in integral part of the conference. Discussants are the lead speakers in their session and are responsible for presenting the main themes of the paper and offering their views. Moderators are the ringmasters of their panels.

Elizabeth Grossman is the We Robot 2014 Discussant for Meg Leta Ambrose’s paper Regulating the Loop: Ironies of Automation Law on Friday, April 4th at 8:45 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Dr. Grossman is a Technology Policy Strategist within the Technology Policy Group at Microsoft Corporation. This group helps identify disruptive and emerging technologies, assesses their implications for Microsoft, and drives focused policy engagements with governments and global institutions. The group’s areas of focus are broad and include applications and implications of intelligent and autonomous systems. Prior to Microsoft, Elizabeth was at Lewis-Burke Associates, the Research Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, and the National Academy of Sciences. Elizabeth received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and Mathematics from Swarthmore College and a Masters and Ph.D. in Computational Physics from the University of Chicago.

Peter Asaro is the We Robot 2014 Discussant for Jason Millar’s paper Proxy Prudence – Rethinking Models of Responsibility for Semi-autonomous Robots on Friday, April 4th at 10:15AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Asaro is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Programs for the School of Media Studies at the New School for Public Engagement in New York City. He is the co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, and has written on lethal robotics from the perspective of just war theory and human rights. Dr. Asaro’s research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, and autonomous vehicles.

Jodi Forlizzi is the We Robot 2014 Discussant for Ann Bartow’s paper Robots as Labor Creating Devices: Robotic Technologies and the Expansion of the Second Shift on Friday, April 4th at 11:45 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Forlizzi is an interaction designer and researcher with an Associate Professor position in Design and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. Her research ranges from understanding the limits of human attention to understanding how products and services evoke social behavior, and she designs and researches systems ranging from peripheral displays to social and assistive robots and interfaces to control them.

Kate Darling is Moderator for the We Robot 2014 presentation Panel on Robots and Social Justice on Friday, April 4th at 2:00 PM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Darling is a Research Specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Yale Information Society Project. After surviving law school, she went on to complete a science doctorate at the ETH Zurich. Her work has covered innovation policy in copyright and patent systems and increasingly focuses on the intersection of law and robotics, with a particular interest in social and ethical issues.