Heather Pon-Barry

Heather Pon-Barry is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Mount Holyoke College, directing the Interactive Computing Research Lab. Her work focuses on human-robot interaction, spoken dialogue systems, and educational robotics, integrating artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, and cognitive science. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Harvard University and a B.S./M.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Her research emphasizes technologies that enhance robots' conversational abilities and foster inclusive learning environments.

Education: Ph.D., Harvard University; M.S. and B.S., Stanford University. She teaches courses in natural language processing, introductory computer science, and data structures. Her NSF CAREER Award supports her work on educational robots. She co-developed the MaGE peer mentorship program to promote diversity in CS.

Research interests include: spoken language processing, emotion recognition, human-robot interaction, and broadening participation in computing. Grants include NSF awards and Google funding. Her work addresses challenges in social robotics and mentorship to create welcoming STEM communities.

Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2020), NSF National Robotics Initiative Award, Google CS Capacity Award. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at UMass Amherst.