Two Cornell Human Ecology faculty members – Keith Green and Angela Odoms-Young – received endowed professorships this year that will support their pioneering research and outreach. Green focuses on architectural robotics and Odoms-Young examines the social factors that influence nutrition in low-income communities. 

“I am incredibly grateful for the generosity of the donors who sponsored these endowed professorships,” said Rachel Dunifon, the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology. “Endowments helps us to further support the work of our existing faculty members and attract top talent.”

Innovating human-machine interaction in the built environment

Green, a professor in the Department of Human Centered Design with a joint appointment in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is now the Jean and Douglas McClean Professor in Human Centered Design. The professorship was established in 2017 in memory of Jean McClean, a former Human Ecology faculty member in textiles and clothing. Professor Emeritus Anil Netravali previously held the title.

Green leads the Architectural Robotics Lab, where his team designs and investigates cyber-physical, environments – mostly in the form of robotic furnishings and rooms. The central idea is to create environments that support and augment people in their daily lives, whether they’re working, learning  or performing simple daily activities.

“We think of the walls, the ceilings, the floors and the furnishing we’re familiar with as robotic systems,” Green explains. “Essentially, we envision the room itself as a robot.” 

The lab has invented and studied robotic rooms to help people of all ages and stages of life. For example, the research team created a “literacy room” in a public library by embedding an everyday space with robotics. When visitors read aloud, this cyber-physical environment transforms to reflect the imaginary space of the book. Children can then “fine-tune” the room through tangible interfaces so it better fits what’s in their imaginations. The team’s preliminary studies have found that the room helps to improve literacy.

“Someone reads to the kids and the room transforms to evoke the content of the book,” Green says. “As the librarian or teacher reads, they can stop to ask questions, and the kids’ answers will shape what they see in the room.” The lab also created a “Lit Kit” that replicates the functionality of the room at a more portable and affordable scale.

To help working professionals, Green has designed robotic workstations that promote collaboration and the use of analog and digital tools. He is also a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded proposal that brings together engineering researchers from five institutions to re-imagine the future of manufacturing. 

“The big idea is to think of the factory as a robot,” he says. “How can we make it possible for people who can’t get to the factory – maybe they are quarantined, or they have some mobility challenges, or lack the will – how can we make it possible for them to participate in the manufacturing workforce?”

Other projects include creating a living space that assists older adults with activities of daily living, such as making and carrying a hot cup of coffee, and a quarantine-inspired living space that adapts and reconfigures for a variety of activities.

For Green, the endowed professorship will provide seed money for new projects and support student research and travel. 

“It’s an incredible honor, and helpful in supporting new and exciting projects,” he says.

Promoting equity and justice through nutrition

Angela Odoms-Young, an associate professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, is now the Nancy Schlegel Meinig Associate Professor of Maternal and Child Nutrition. Four generations of the Meinig family have attended Cornell, and the family has established endowed professorships across the university. Professor Emerita Kathleen M. Rasmussen previously held this title.

Odoms-Young’s research explores the social and structural factors that influence food choices and health outcomes, especially in communities that disproportionately experience food insecurity and chronic disease. As the director of the Food and Nutrition Education in Communities Program and the New York State Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, she is working to develop nutrition education programs that adapt to a variety of cultures and promote health equity, food justice and community resilience. 

“The end goal is really to improve the health of communities and the health of children,” she says. “We want to address health disparities. And we want to make sure we’re doing rigorous science that is responsive to community needs.”

Projects in Odoms-Young’s laboratory – the Nutrition Liberation, Food Sovereignty, and Justice Lab – fall into three buckets. The first focuses on better understanding the factors that create inequality in health and the food system. She is collaborating with scholars across Cornell and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to use systems dynamic modeling – which describes and predicts interactions within complex systems over time – to better understand how racism impacts childhood obesity. Another project, funded by Feeding America, is creating an equity tool to help food banks distribute resources more fairly. 

“Food insecurity disproportionately affects low-income populations, populations of color, LGBQT+ populations, and rural populations,” she says. “We want to understand the issues that exist in the charitable food system so we can better think about how to close those gaps in food insecurity.”

The lab’s second area of focus is building capacity within communities to improve community members' health and nutrition. For example, Odoms-Young is partnering with a planned development community in Chicago designed to address the factors that influence health. The community offers housing, health care and fitness, shopping, and jobs and job-training. 

“We want to create an environment that supports quality of life and health, and then evaluate its impacts,” she says. 

The third focus is creating nutrition education programs that respond to the cultural needs of individual communities and improve health and wellness. 

“We want to address the diversity in our state,” she says. “We used to think of diversity as race and ethnicity, but we also want to focus on LGBTQ+ populations, people who are neurodiverse and people with disabilities.” 

The endowed professorship will help Odoms-Young get more students involved in her research and expand her lab’s capacity to work with communities. 

“This is going to help us train the next generation of researchers who can improve population health and address health disparities,” she says. “And it’s going to help us make sure that our science is responsive to community needs today.”