[Sci-tech-public] TODAY: Seminar by Janet Vertesi on Imaging and Interacting on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, 5pm in 33-116

[David Mindell]

Seminar on Space Policy and Society

"Seeing Like A Rover": Imaging and Interacting on the Mars Exploration Rover
Mission

Janet Vertesi

Science & Technology Studies Department

Cornell University

TODAY

Wednesday, February 6

5:00-7:00pm

Room 33-116

Abstract: For the public, the many images that return from the Mars
Exploration Rover mission show "what it would look like if you were standing
on Mars". But the team of scientists and engineers that operate Spirit and
Opportunity rely heavily on these images to decide where the Rover is, what
challenges it faces and what it should do next. In doing so, they speak of
"learning to see like a Rover", and adopt both computational and embodied
visualization strategies to support this robotic vision. This talk draws on
two years of fieldwork with the Mars Exploration Rover team to explore the
visual interpretations, transformations of pictorial data, and wide-spread
adoption of robotic attributes that enable daily Rover activities on Mars,
with policy implications for robotic mission operations.

Biography: Janet Vertesi holds an M.Phil. in the History and Philosophy of
Science from Cambridge University and is currently a PhD candidate in the
Science & Technology Studies Department at Cornell University, where she
works on the history and sociology of images and visual technologies in
scientific practice. Her NSF-supported doctoral research explores the use of
images on the Mars Exploration Rover mission based on extensive ethnographic
fieldwork, participant observation and interviews with team members across
the country. With publications ranging from a 17th century lunar mapping
controversy to the use of the London Underground Map to represent urban
space, Janet is also active within the Human Computer Interaction community
as a contributor at CHI and as a member of Cornell Information Science's
Culturally Embedded Computing Research Group.

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