Short Biography

(Full CV can be found here)

 

I received my B.M.Sc, M.Sc. in physics and M.B.A. at Tel-Aviv University in Israel. My M.Sc. research on wave propagation and scattering was done with Prof. Heyman in the department of Electrical Engineering. My first Ph.D. was in Chemical Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. I researched with Prof. Kurizki dynamical decoherence control of open quantum systems and quantum communication protocols. I also published and developed quantum computer games as an entertaining tool to teach quantum physics. My second Ph.D. was in Computational Neuroscience, also in the Weizmann Institute. Together with Prof. Ahissar I developed novel mathematical models of curiosity and exploration, compared them to animals' behavior and applied them to curious robots. I completed my postdoctoral research in the Personal Robots Group in the Media Lab, MIT, under the supervision of Cynthia Breazeal. I investigated how curious robots can learn to be social by themselves, and how they can assist curious children to learn literacy skills.

 

See full CV for publication list and awards.

 

 

I am currently the head of the Curiosity Lab at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. My lab investigates mathematical models of curiosity, how to quantitatively assess and promote curiosity in children and adults, and how to bestow curiosity onto robots, such that they learn about their own body, object affordances and social interaciton all by themselves in an optimal manner.