Dr. Kelsey Allen is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Psychology at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Allen studies cognitive science, machine learning, and robotics—with a particular interest in tool use and tool creation, which can range from every-day challenges, like wielding a broom to get something from under a couch, to grand challenges in science and engineering, like creating wind turbines or rocket ships. At both extremes, people adaptively reshape their environments in ways that expand the scope of what they are individually capable of. Dr. Allens’s research investigates which computational mechanisms support these complex behaviors in humans, and tries to endow machines with similar abilities to flexibly and appropriately solve new challenges.