Hi! My name is Zachary Kaufman. Thanks for visiting my site. I am a first year Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado Boulder, triple majoring in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience. I have a B.S. and M.S. from Indiana University (IU) in Intelligent Systems Engineering, in which I concentrated on Cyber-Physical Systems during my Bachelor's, and Neuroengineering during my Master's. Throughout my time at IU I was a research assistant in the R-House Human-Robot Interaction Lab where I studied how robots can be impactful in settings such as elementary schools, elderly care facilities, and at home. My focus was on Socially Assistive Robots for people with Major Depressive Disorder. During my Master's I was also a research assistant in the Socioneural Physiology Lab where I studied human trust in AI systems and detecting that trust (or distrust) using physiological sensors.

Now that I am at CU Boulder I am co-advised by Dr. Leanne Hirshfield in the System-Human Interaction with NIRS and EEG (SHINE) Lab, as well as Dr. Ellen Do in the ACME Creative Machine Environment (ACME) Lab. My current research is primarily focused on misinformation, and how it can affect people's decision making processes. We are doing this by using a wide range of physiological sensors, such as fNIRS, fMRI, EEG, and eye tracking. I am particularly interested in using machine/deep learning models to better understand our data and the links between misinformation susceptibility or resilience and mental or cognitive health.

Research Goals

My research sits at the intersection of Human-Computer/Robot Interaction and Cognitive Neuroscience, with a focus on developing robots and AI systems that support human well-being. I am passionate about exploring how intelligent systems can improve mental health, enhance human-computer interactions, and contribute to a more empathetic, connected, and flourishing society. By integrating technology with neuroscience, we can better understand AI and cognition while ensuring these technologies are developed in ways that are fair, inclusive, and accessible to all.

Current Research

System-Human Interaction through NIRS and EEG (SHINE) Lab

In Spring 2025 I will be joining the Cognitive Security Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative project. We will be studying misinformation and it's affects on decision making processes in a variety of environments, including real world environments such as social media, low information density environments such as being an astronaut, or an Antarctic researcher, and high information density environments such as being an airforce cadet in a command center. This project is in collaboration with the United States Airforce Academy and Texas A&M. It is sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Previous Research

Socioneural Physiology Lab (SPLab)

Towards the end of my undergraduate, and beginning my Master's I joined the TrustingAI Project. This large, multi-university project funded by the Department of Defense studied human trust in Artificial Intelligence. SPLab researched the detection of trust using physiological signals such as micro-expressions and ECG signals. We did this through having participants play a computer game against another person which will force a player to deceive the other player. By using computer vision, ECG sensors, and machine learning models we were working towards detecting changes in trust between players at this point of deception, and eventually applying that to interactions between humans and AI.

R-House Human-Robot Interaction Lab

Haru Project: Haru, a prototype desktop social robot being developed by Honda Research Institute of Japan, is designed to be an "Encouraging Mediator" between groups of people who are disconnected by age, culture, language, or physical distance. The primary focus of R-House is on developing Haru for use with children, focusing on engagement and privacy. One of the main studies I was a part of is creating perception models for Haru that can help Haru dynamically adapt to children's changing levels of engagement based on data from non-invasive sensors such as RGB and thermal cameras. The other study I participated in was using UNICEF's guidelines for AI and children which discussed nine requirements for child-centered AI that protects the child's rights during child-AI interactions. We ran user based studies with children and their parents to test how these guidelinesdigital privacy, and Haru can work effectively and safely in everyday scenarios.

Therabot™ Project: This project studied how we could design a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) for helping patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) manage and monitor symptoms using Mississippi State University's prototype SAR named Therabot™. Most of the studies I was involved in with this project had participants with MDD do a participatory design workshop in which they would design an aspect of Therabot™, such as it's physical appearance, it's programming, or what sensors it would use. This helped Mississippi State Univerisity make design decisions as they further developed Therabot™, but also helped inform future SAR researchers about what aspects of any SAR would be helpful in the treatment, monitoring, and management of MDD.

Contact Me

Feel free to connect with me through the following platforms:

• [email protected]
• GitHub @ZCKaufman
• LinkedIn @ZCKaufman
• Google Scholar