Kristin Dana

Kristin J. Dana received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1999, her M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992, and her B.S. from The Cooper Union in 1990. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University and the co-founder of Steg AI, a startup focused on watermarking and authenticated digital media. She is also a member of the graduate faculty in the Rutgers Computer Science Department and serves as the director of an NSF National Research Traineeship (NRT) titled “Socially Cognizant Robotics for a Technology-Enhanced Society” (SOCRATES). Dr. Dana’s research expertise lies in computer vision and robotics, with applications in navigation, remote sensing, agriculture, and steganography. She has made pioneering contributions in surface appearance modeling, material recognition, texture analysis, computational photography, and multimodal machine learning. Her work is deeply interdisciplinary, integrating concepts from computer vision, artificial intelligence, and robotics to solve complex real-world problems. In addition to her research, Dr. Dana actively fosters interdisciplinary collaboration through her leadership role in the SOCRATES program, guiding students and researchers in advancing socially responsible technology.
The SOCRATES NRT grant was awarded in September 2020 and the program has received additional student support from the NB Chancellor’s Office as well as the School of Engineering, School of Arts and Science, and the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. SOCRATES has created a new vehicle for graduate training and convergence research that integrates the technology domains of robotics with social and behavioral sciences, including psychology, cognitive science and urban policy planning.