Name: Nicholas Garcia
Hometown: Miami, Florida
Year in program: 4th Year
Research Interest: My research interests include perception-action and human-robot interaction. I’m interested in exploring how people perceive other people’s abilities to perform actions and the information people attend when doing so. One day, I hope this research might also help us design robots that can judge other people’s abilities to perform actions. For example, this research could help design caretaker robots that can correctly judge whether our grandmothers can safely reach for a can of soup on the top shelf of their kitchens. If it’s too risky for our grandmothers to do so, a caretaker robot can then offer assistance
Career Aspirations: Once I graduate, I would love to be a part of a collaborative and creative research team at the industry level. Within this team, I hope to work with my peers to produce impactful human factors and user experience research that will help improve our users’ lives. With this mission in mind, I hope my Texas Tech education will offer me the chance to utilize my HF training globally to help others.
Fun Fact: I’ve been able to travel to over 50 countries around the world. My favorite countries I’ve visited so far include Japan and South Africa.
Advice to younger students: Never to be too hard on yourself! Grad school will always be about growth. If you learn from both your success and failures, and give your best effort, I promise you will leave grad school as a better person and researcher.
Hometown: Miami, Florida
Year in program: 4th Year
Research Interest: My research interests include perception-action and human-robot interaction. I’m interested in exploring how people perceive other people’s abilities to perform actions and the information people attend when doing so. One day, I hope this research might also help us design robots that can judge other people’s abilities to perform actions. For example, this research could help design caretaker robots that can correctly judge whether our grandmothers can safely reach for a can of soup on the top shelf of their kitchens. If it’s too risky for our grandmothers to do so, a caretaker robot can then offer assistance
Career Aspirations: Once I graduate, I would love to be a part of a collaborative and creative research team at the industry level. Within this team, I hope to work with my peers to produce impactful human factors and user experience research that will help improve our users’ lives. With this mission in mind, I hope my Texas Tech education will offer me the chance to utilize my HF training globally to help others.
Fun Fact: I’ve been able to travel to over 50 countries around the world. My favorite countries I’ve visited so far include Japan and South Africa.
Advice to younger students: Never to be too hard on yourself! Grad school will always be about growth. If you learn from both your success and failures, and give your best effort, I promise you will leave grad school as a better person and researcher.
