For over a year, I have been part of research involving an online learning platform, SAPIEN, that creates diverse and emotionally responsive virtual agents offering a highly personalized interaction experience in various domains and providing actionable feedback. I was fortunate enough to have this work featured in the demo track of the 2023 International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) at MIT this week. The entire trip to Boston, including the flight, conference fee, in-city transport, and food expenses, was generously covered by the department. I was eager to observe what work other researchers in the field have been conducting, and the whole experience made me critically reflect upon myself as a researcher and think about my future endeavors.
Day 1: Saturday, September 9
The flight was on a Sunday, and I wanted to take full advantage of my time there by doing my assignments early, which led me to stay awake for nearly the 30 hours leading up to my flight. I made it to the airport on time, however, the flight got delayed several times for 3 hours. I turned the delay into an opportunity, using the time to catch some much-needed sleep while hoping the flight wouldn't get canceled due to weather conditions. I made it to Boston and arrived at the Airbnb at around 8:30 PM. I was exhausted, but I had to get some work done before the next day. I was able to get a good night's sleep and woke up early to get ready for the conference.
Day 2: Sunday, September 10
Before entering the venue, we arrived at the MIT List Visual Arts Center and walked to the Stata Center. After an hour of touring, we went to the Opening Reception at the MIT Museum where I got my first taste of the conference. I was able to meet and talk to many researchers in the field, and I was surprised to see how many people were interested in my work. There were also interesting demos on display, including the optical parametric oscillator of a squeezed light generator used for gravitational wave detection, an interactive application that lets you type paragraphs and screens your likelihood of having neurodegenerative diseases, and the GeneChip Scanner, which is used to scan DNA microarrays. I was able to learn a lot about the research being conducted in the field and was excited to see what the next day had in store.
Day 3: Monday, September 11
This is the day the conference officially began at the MIT Media Lab. There were lots of interesting presentations in different topics. The presentations and papers were organized by their topics, and each topic had its own schedule, so people could choose which presentations they wanted to attend. On this day, I attended presentations on "Large Language Models" and "Emotion Recognition," and a panel session on "Ethical Affective Computing in Practice," featuring panelists such as Amanda McCroskery from Google Research, Andreas Häuselmann from the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, Javier Hernandez from the Human Understanding and Empathy (HUE) Group at Microsoft Research, and Sherry Turkle from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was able to learn about the latest research in the field and talked to some of the researchers about their work. In the evening, we went out to take a stroll on Massachusetts Avenue and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The next day was going to be our demo, so we went back to the Airbnb to do some more development and get some rest.
Day 4: Tuesday, September 12
This was the day of our demo, but before that, some of my labmates had a presentation on another project from our lab, so I attended the presentations on "Virtual Reality and Agents". My labmate's presentation was on using virtual agents for end-of-life communication training for medical students, which got a lot of attention from the audience. I am also part of the next iteration of this project which hasn't been published yet, so I was excited to see how the audience would react to it. After the presentations, we took a break, and then it was time for our demo. We had a desk with our laptop connected to a bigger monitor as well as speakers. We had a lot of people come to our demo to try it out. I was able to talk to many people about our work and got some great feedback. it was an amazing experience to be able to present our work to a broad audience that came from all over the world.
After the demonstration, the boat cruise conference banquet began, which kicked off from the Boston Inner Harbor. Interested attendees boarded the bus and we navigated through Boston's heavy traffic, taking approximately an hour to reach the boat. The vessel was quite good and ensured we all had an enjoyable time. It had been organised with dinner, drinks and a music-spinning DJ. We also engaged in a game of foosball. The boat journey offered a view of the Boston skyline, which everyone enjoyed. Once the banquet wrapped up, we returned to our Airbnb for some sleep.
Day 5: Wednesday, September 13
On the final day of the conference, the heavy rain caused us to depart later than planned. We visited the MIT main campus, starting at the Rotch Library and touring the main quadrangle. We then attended the closing ceremony at the MIT Media Lab. Originally, we had planned to walk around the Harvard campus afterward, however, the intensifying rain compelled us to return to our Airbnb. I was pretty tired at this point and spend the rest of the evening relaxing and getting ready for the flight the next day.
My Return and Reflections
The next day, I woke up early to catch my flight. I was able to get some sleep on the plane, and I was back in Rochester by 2:30 PM.
The ACII conference was not only a refreshing experience but also an eye-opening one that marks a landmark in my research career. Everything I have done between June 2022 and now came full circle. I initially began with the straightforward task of superimposing an image onto a background using OpenCV. Gradually, I took on more complex responsibilities in various projects. Eventually, I started to supervise and mentor new undergraduates, culminating in the completion of our work and publication of a paper. Ultimately reaching a convention where everyone shared a comparable work background and experiences, and now I have the opportunity to share my work and start anew. Of course my starting point is much more advanced this time. Despite the ups and downs I had over the year, there was never a moment when I considered giving up, and I can finally say with full certainty that I enjoy what I do.
My most recent experiences have sparked an interest in me to perhaps consider a doctoral degree, potentially at an esteemed institute such as MIT. Initially, I held a preconceived notion about the challenges and rewards of a career in academia, especially the commitment of several years for comparably lower remuneration. Alluring job prospects at FAANG companies certainly seemed more attractive without the necessity of a PhD. However, my perspective has drastically shifted now. Beyond the apparent, I've discovered the profound gratification of creating something novel and contributing to the world of knowledge (read about my thoughts on this here). My time at the ACII conference has played a pivotal role in enhancing my enthusiasm for research and opened wide the door towards newer prospects.