Biography
Timothy Bickmore is a professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Boston. He served as the college's associate dean of research from 2017 to 2022.
With his interdisciplinary approach to research, Bickmore concentrates on the intersection of human–computer interaction, natural language processing (dialogue systems), animation, and health, medical, and behavioral informatics. In developing and evaluating computer agents that emulate face-to-face interactions between health providers and patients, he emphasizes the emotional and relational aspects of those interactions; this makes the research better suited for use in health education and long-term health behavior change interventions.
As the director of the Relational Agents Group, Bickmore works with his team to simulate face-to-face counseling with a focus on the relational aspects of those interactions. In addition, Bickmore has chaired or co-chaired several meetings, including Intelligent Virtual Agents, AAAI symposia, and CHI workshops on health informatics and virtual agents. He is an associate editor of the Interacting with Computers journal and has presented his research internationally. His work has received funding from NSF, NIH, AHRQ, HRSA, and PCORI.
Prior to joining Northeastern in 2005, Bickmore was an assistant professor in the Boston University School of Medicine.
