Armin Arjmand

Armin Arjmand

About Me

Hi, I’m Mehdi Arjmand, but I go by Armin. I’m a third-year Ph.D. student at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, where I work in the Relational Agents Group under the supervision of Timothy Bickmore. My academic journey began at the University of Tehran, where I earned my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and conducted research on multimodal machine learning for emotion recognition.

Research Interests

My research explores conversational agents, multimodal interaction, and affective computing, with a focus on healthcare applications. I develop AI agents that leverage large language models (LLMs) and multimodal interaction techniques to engage in meaningful and empathetic communication in health-related contexts, such as symptom reporting and motivational interviewing. By incorporating psychological theories, my work aims to design advanced conversational agents that not only assist in healthcare tasks but also deepen our understanding of human multimodal behavior through their interactions.

Full CV available upon request.

News

  • [Nov 2024]: I received my MSc degree in Computer Science
    Achieved my MSc degree as a significant milestone within my ongoing Ph.D. program at Northeastern University, reflecting progress in my academic and research journey.

  • [Sep 2024]: Honored to receive the Best Paper Award at IVA’24
    Our paper evaluating LLM-based agents for Motivational Interviewing was recognized with the prestigious Best Paper Award at IVA’24.

  • [July 2024]: 3 full papers accepted at IVA’24! Find details on my publication page
    Excited to announce the acceptance of three papers at IVA’24, covering topics like conversational agents, multimodal interaction, and the role of empathy in communication.

  • [May 2024]: Check out my pre-print on empathic grounding
    Released a pre-print introducing innovative approaches to empathic grounding, emphasizing the role of empathy in achieving meaningful conversational grounding.

  • [Nov 2023]: New paper published on ArXiv
    Published a pre-print exploring how LLMs can generate item variants for standardized questionnaires, enhancing flexibility and personalization in data collection.

  • [Oct 2023]: Presented research at ICMI’24 - AAP’24
    Delivered a presentation on the role of hand gestures in describing past pain experiences during interactions with a conversational agent.

  • [May 2023]: Thrilled to begin my internship at USC-ICT
    Joined the Affective Computing Lab at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, working on developing persuasive conversational agents for gaming contexts.

  • [Sep 2022]: Started my Ph.D. at Northeastern University
    Embarked on my Ph.D. journey at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, focusing on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Embodied Coversational Agents (ECAs).