Rana el Kaliouby
Co-founder of Affectiva
An Egyptian-American computer scientist who co-founded Affectiva, a pioneer of emotion AI that reads emotions from faces.
Biography
Rana el Kaliouby is an Egyptian-American computer scientist and co-founder, with Rosalind Picard, of Affectiva, which she led as CEO from 2016. She earned a bachelor's and a master's degree from the American University in Cairo and a PhD from Newnham College, Cambridge.
As a research scientist at MIT she helped found the Autism & Communication Technology Initiative, and in the Media Lab's Affective Computing group she was part of the team that pioneered the "emotional hearing aid," emotion-reading wearable glasses. At Affectiva she led the emotion science team. She gave the TEDWomen 2015 talk "This app knows how you feel from the look on your face," published the memoir Girl Decoded in April 2020, and contributed a chapter to Martin Ford's 2018 book Architects of Intelligence.
Notable contributions
Co-founded Affectiva
Co-founded Affectiva with Rosalind Picard to build technology that reads emotions, leading its emotion science team and later becoming CEO in 2016.
Pioneered the emotional hearing aid
At the MIT Media Lab's Affective Computing group, was part of the team that developed the "emotional hearing aid", emotion-reading wearable glasses.
Published Girl Decoded
Published the memoir Girl Decoded in April 2020.