Justine Cassell
Department of Communication Studies
Professor
Director, Joint PhD in Technology and Social Behavior
Director, Center for Technology and Social Behavior
justine@northwestern.edu
Frances Searle Building
2240 Campus Drive, Room 2-148
Evanston , IL 60208-2952
847-491-3534
Graduate Programs: Media, Technology & Society, Communication Studies
Justine Cassell's research focuses on understanding natural forms of communication, and then creating technological tools for those forms of communication and linguistic expression to flourish in the digital world. In particular, she is credited with developing the Embodied Conversational Agent, a virtual human capable of interacting with humans using both language and nonverbal behavior. More recently Cassell has investigated the role that the ECA can play in children's lives, as support for learning language and literacy skills, in a project called ‘the virtual peer’. Cassell and her students are currently researching how virtual peers can scaffold literacy learning in children who come to school speaking different languages or dialects than those of the classroom; and how the virtual peer can scaffold the development of contingent social skills in children with high-functioning autism.
Education
| PhD | Linguistics & Psychology, University of Chicago |
| MliTT | Linguistics, University of Edinburgh |
| BA | Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College |
| DEUG | Lettres Modernes, Université de Besançon |
Recent Publications
See Cassell’s publications website.
Recent Awards and Honors
| 2007 | AT&T Research Chair, Northwestern University |
| 2007 | Top Paper Award, Communities and Technologies Annual Conference |
| 2006 | Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century |
Recent Grants and Funding
| 2006-2008 | Authorable Virtual Peers for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Cure Autism Now Foundation. also National Association of Autism Research. Also Alumnae of Northwestern. |
Courses
See Cassell’s course website.
