Engineering and Autism: A national workshop
University of Southern California
Creating synergies through a meeting of trans-disciplinary minds and perspectives

Workshop Theme:
Computational Approaches to Social Communication and Interaction Development in Autism
Workshop Organizer Contact: Prof. Shri Narayanan, USC, shri@sipi.usc.edu

Date: Friday, September 28, 2012 7.30 am - 4.30 pm
Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center Ballroom, USC
3607 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Parking $10 Parking Structure A (PSA) Enter at the Vermont Avenue Entrance at 36th Place (Entrance 6)
USC campus map

The Engineering and Autism Workshop was held at USC on September 28, 2012 as a one-day national workshop that brought together engineering researchers, especially in the broad domain of social/affective and communicative behavioral computing, with leading Autism researchers and clinicians as well as the broader community of stakeholders including families. The workshop aimed to highlight and explore the opportunities and possibilities of engineering and computing advances in supporting research and translation in Autism by creating synergies and partnerships by initiating a multidisciplinary dialog.

The focus of the workshop was on Social Communication and Interaction Development in Autism. Leading Autism researchers spoke about early detection and intervention advances while engineering researchers highlighted advances in sensing, behavioral signal processing, computing and behavioral informatics that hold promise for supporting Autism research and clinical translation. A panel of experts discussed the potential, challenges and new directions for collaborative partnerships across the community.

FINAL PROGRAM (PDF)

• Welcome: Shri Narayanan, Professor & Director, USC Ming Hsieh Institute

  Computational behavioral sciences: From behavioral signal processing to behavioral informatics

• Jim Rehg, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

David Forsyth, Professor, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign

Shri Narayanan, Professor, Professor & Director, USC Ming Hsieh Institute

• Early detection of autism: Challenges and approaches
  Wendy Stone, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology
  Susan and Richard Fade Endowed Chair and Director, University of Washington Autism Center

• Three technology highlights (engineering PhD students)
  Daniel Bone, University of Southern California
  Yin Li, Georgia Institute of Technology
  Javier Hernandez Rivera, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  
• Engaging autism: Developmental implications for intervention and issues of measurement
  Connie Kasari, Professor of Psychological Studies in Education & Psychiatry, UCLA

• Human-centered approaches to technologies for autism
  Gillian Hayes, UC Irvine

• Three technology highlights (engineering PhD students)
  Gabriela Marcu, Carnegie Mellon University
  Rahul Gupta, University of Southern California
  Denis Lantsman, Georgia Institute of Technology
  

• Strategies for tackling the challenges of autism heterogeneity
  Pat Levitt, Provost Professor, Keck School of Medicine of USC

• Automated monitoring of vocal development and early detection of autism
  D. Kimbrough (Kim) Oller, Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence, University of Memphis

• Proposed application of automated computational analysis to the early detection of autism spectrum disorders
  Ted Hutman, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Science, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA

• Discussion & Wrap up
  Participants: Gregory Abowd (GeorgiaTech)
  Portia Iversen (The Descartes Institute)
  Clara LaJonchere (Autism Speaks)
  Olga Solomon (USC)
  Facilitators: Matthew Goodwin (Northeastern University) & Agata Rozga (GeorgiaTech)

Event photos

The Engineering and Autism Workshop is sponsored and hosted by the Ming Hsieh Institute of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. This meeting is also sponsored in part by the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and hosted by the Center of Behavior Imaging of Georgia Institute of Technology and the Center of Autism Research in Engineering (CARE) of the USC Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory.

Other workshop affiliates include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Emory University, Northeastern University and the University of Pittsburgh. The collaborative Expeditions in Computing on Computational Behavioral Science is supported by the National Science Foundation.

NSF Expeditions in Computing Program