Influential Women in AI: What is Chelsea Finn known for?
- Angela Novelli
- 12 minutes ago
- 3 min read
As AI continues to grow across industries around the world, it is important to take a look at the figures that influence progress made in these new developments. In our series on influential women in AI, we seek to highlight successful women that persist in breaking down barriers and showing the world their technological accomplishments.
Only 31% of AI professionals are women, and though progress has been made in increasing representation in technology, there is still a long way to go. This article will cover the story and work of Chelsea Finn, Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Her work in AI and robotics enables development of intelligent technology that can better the lives of individuals and families.
Read on to learn more about what Chelsea Finn is known for in the realm of AI and the impact her achievements have made.
Chelsea Finn’s Background
Chelsea Finn has always taken an interest in solving problems and puzzles, even from a very young age. Her parents were both engineers, which fueled that curiosity and enjoyment, leading her to pursue such a career for herself. Finn majored in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering before she started her journey in robotics and AI, where many accomplishments in problem solving could be had.
Finn received her Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and her PhD in Computer Science at UC Berkeley. She became inspired by the efforts of the faculty at MIT in increasing the representation of women in their staff and speakers, ensuring the existence of role models for all young students. This led Chelsea Finn to pursue her own efforts in inspiring students, including mentorship programs, outreach programs, and eventually becoming a teacher herself. She is now an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.
“I liked that there’s a lot of interesting applications of machine learning that have a real positive impact on people, whether it be machine learning for medicine, computer vision, interpreting language.”
Achievements in AI and Robotics
Chelsea Finn chose to conduct her research in robotics, machine learning, and AI, seeking to find ways to enable robots to be more intelligent and learn autonomously. She focuses on comprehensive learning of visual perception and robotic manipulation skills, reinforcement learning of general skills from independently-collected data, and meta-learning algorithms that have the ability to enable quicker learning of brand new concepts and behaviors.
She co-founded Physical Intelligence, an AI and robotics company whose mission is to develop a model that can allow a robot to be able to perform any task in whatever environment it is in. After some trial and error, the company’s work has reached great achievements in their intelligent robot systems, including having the robot tidy up kitchens and bedrooms in environments it has never seen before. This is a major feat in designing technology that contributes to bettering the lives of people, especially those that may struggle with performing such tasks on their own.
“Generally in research, I think that nothing works the first time, whether it be a robot or another system. In research you’re really trying to solve problems that no one has solved before, so you have to persevere and when things aren’t working then you come up with new ideas and move on, keep on trying.”
Impact & Recognition
Chelsea Finn has made continued efforts during her career in increasing representation of underrepresented minorities within Computer Science and AI, leaving a positive impact in the lives of young students who wish to pursue a career in tech. She has developed an AI outreach camp at Berkeley for underprivileged high school students, a mentoring program for underrepresented undergraduates across three different universities, and led initiatives within the WiML and Berkeley WiCSE communities of women researchers.
Finn’s research and accomplishments have been recognized through a variety of different awards. These include: the ACM doctoral dissertation award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the MIT Technology Review 35 under 35 list, and the Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation from IEEE RAS.
“I like the idea of looking at problems that have already been solved and trying to solve them yourself, maybe in a different way. Then you know that the problem is actually solvable, and it’s something that you can actually get a result out of.”
The journey of Chelsea Finn is one that is great to share in order to highlight the many accomplishments of women in tech. Through the power of robotics and AI, influential women like Chelsea Finn continue to embrace innovation for the betterment of society as a whole.
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