memo36-+letter+introduction

Dear Sir/Madam

This is Tahereh Saheb, the PhD student in Science Technology Studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For my PhD thesis, I am working on the psychological functions of humanoid robots. This letter is for introducing me to you and request to have an interview with you about psychological disorders, schizophrenia in particular. I have published some papers about my project in human robot international conference held in 2012 and also in two famous journals; Schizophrenia Bulletin and Human Robot Interaction Journal. I have attached the papers to this letter. As you may realize, I want to know whether we can use robots, humanoid and anthropomorphic robots in particular, to help people with schizophrenia to recover socially and emotionally. Believing in some dysfunctions that schizophrenic people have in their communication and social life, I would be happy to know more about the schizophrenia, its symptoms, the roles of families and close friends in recovering them , and to know whether strengthening their social and communicating life will help them to recover or not. On the other hand, I want to know whether the gender of psychiatrist will affect the efficiency of psychiatric measures or not, for example designing a female robot to do psychiatric measures for a male schizophrenic patient has more efficiency than designing a male robot for a male schizophrenic patients? Based on the information of my interview with you and the other psychologist, I am going to guide robotic engineers to design and program a humanoid robot based on the common social and communicative needs of these patients. After designing and programming the robots, I am going to review and monitor the reactions and communications of robots and schizophrenic patients in two psychiatric clinics, one in Japan and another one in USA for at least 6 month. I would be thankful if you also guide me in this period, that what factors I should consider in this observational field. I would appreciate your contribution to this project. I would be also happy to answer any questions you have about project and looking forward to hear from you regarding your availability for having an interview. With best regards Tahereh Saheb