Eva Hudlicka is a Principal Scientist and President of Psychometrix Associates, Inc. in Blacksburg, VA. Her primary research focus is the development of computational models of emotion; both the cognitive processes involved in appraisal, and the effects of emotions on cognition. The aim of this work is an improved understanding of the mechanisms of emotion generation and emotion-cognition interactions, including the nature of affective biases on cognition.

The findings have practical implications for the development of affective user models and affective virtual agents across a range of applications, including serious games for training and therapy, and for cognitive-affective engineering in general. Specific applications include: training and education, decision-support systems, assistive technologies, assessment and treatment of cognitive-affective disorders, and gaming, especially serious gaming.

This research is conducted within the context of a computational cognitive-affective architecture, the MAMID architecture (Methodology for Modeling and Analysis of Individual Differences), which implements a generic methodology for modeling the interacting effects of multiple affective factors on decision-making.

Prior work included: development of decision-aids supporting individual and group behavior analysis and prediction, cognitive modeling, affect-adaptive user interfaces, visualization and GUI design, knowledge elicitation, and model-based decision-support systems.

Dr. Hudlicka was recently a member of a National Research Council committee on “Organizational Models: From Individuals to Societies”, contributing her expertise on modeling individual behavior with a focus on affective processes.  She has taught courses and tutorials in “Affective Computing”, “Affective Computing for Game Design” and “Computational Emotion Modeling”, and has authored a number of book chapters, articles and reports in this research area.

Hudlicka was born in Prague, Czech Republic. She received her BS in Biochemistry from Virginia Tech, her MS from The Ohio State University in Computer Science, and her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Prior to founding Psychometrix Associates in 1995, she was a Senior Scientist at Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge, MA.