Andrea Thomaz

Andrea Thomaz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Diligent Robotics and a renowned social robotics expert. She co-founded Diligent Robotics to pursue her vision of creating socially intelligent robot assistants that collaborate with humans by doing their chores so humans can have more time for the work they care most about. Her passion for social robotics began during her work at the MIT Media Lab, where she focused on using AI to develop machines that address everyday human needs. Previously, Thomaz was a robotics professor at UT Austin and Georgia Tech (where she directed the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab. Thomaz was recognized by the National Academy of Science as a Kavli Fellow, the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Tech, MIT Technology Review on its Next Generation of 35 Innovators Under 35 list, and Popular Science’s Brilliant 10 list. Thomaz earned her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UT Austin, and her Ph.D. from MIT.