Victoria Chibuogu Nneji is a Nigerian-born American computer scientist, design and innovation strategist, and a

lecturing A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical inform ...

fellow, known for her research on robotics, automation, human-centered design, and autonomous transportation.

Biography

Victoria Chibuogu Nneji was born in

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

; at age 5 she and her family immigrated to the United States and was raised in Durham,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. Nneji attended the

North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) is a two-year, public residential high school located in Durham, North Carolina, that focuses on the intensive study of science, mathematics and technology. It accepts rising juniors ...

(NCSSM) starting her junior year of high school. She has a bachelor’s degree in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, being one of the first in her family to pursue post-secondary education, and studying under

Adam Sobel Adam H. Sobel (born 1967) is a Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics and of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He directs its Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate. His research area is meteorology with a fo ...

. Here, she performed a quantitative analysis on how changes in financial aid would impact a student's performance and the duration of their completion of an associate's degree. Nneji herself had an Anita Borg scholarship to support her attendance to Columbia University. While attending Columbia University, she served as a consultant for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) in Washington Heights, and conducted user research in order to make improvements to EcoMundo, the women's domestic violence recovery group within the NMIC. Nneji received a master’s degree in

engineering management Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, admini ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and a PhD in 2019 in Mechanical Engineering from the Robotics Center at Duke University. Post-graduation she has served as a robotics lecturing fellow at Duke University. The research paper, ''Exploring Concepts of Operations for On-Demand Passenger Air Transportation'' (2017), by co-authors Nneji, Alexander Stimpson, and Mary Cummings from Duke University, and Kenneth H. Goodrich, from NASA Langley Research Center determined that the technology in order to create "on-demand passenger air travel" and related regulatory framework will take more than a decade to create. Nneji has also done research on human-robot interaction. The research paper, ''Tell Me More: Designing HRI to Encourage More Trust, Disclosure, and Companionship'' (2016), by co-authors Nikolas Martelaro, Wendy Ju, and Pamela Hinds, found that vulnerability and expressivity may improve peoples' relationships with robots. In this study, Nneji and her team engaged high school students with robots with low/high vulnerability and low/high expressivity in a learning activity. They found that students were more trusting of vulnerable robots and more communicative with expressive robots. In 2019, Nneji was appointed to Uber's self-driving safety and responsibility advisory (SARA), alongside five others, in order to review, advise, and suggesting changes to Uber's autonomous vehicle development.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nneji, Victoria Chibuogu Year of birth missing (living people) Columbia University alumni Duke University alumni Duke University fellows People from Durham, North Carolina People from Lagos North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics alumni African-American women engineers American women engineers African-American engineers African-American computer scientists American women computer scientists American computer scientists American software engineers Living people Nigerian emigrants to the United States 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women

Biography

See also

References

External links