Mark William Kharas
About
I am a Senior EU advisor for the Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, where I assist researchers in applying for and securing EU-funded grants. I am also the Project Administrator of the Horizon Europe project BIAS: Mitigating Diversity Biases of AI in the Labor Market coordinated by the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture. I have also been the project manager for several EU and Norwegian Research Council-funded research projects.
I have a Masters from Harvard University, where I studied South Asian languages, literature, and religion, and worked in the Harvard administration before coming to NTNU. In addition to my administration work, I am interested in ethics, religion, and spirituality as they relate to contemporary technology and robotics.
Current Project
- BIAS: Mitigating Diversity Biases of AI in the Labor Market (2022–2026) is a Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action coordinated by NTNU with a consortium of nine partners in nine European countries. Artificial Intelligence is increasingly deployed in the labour market to recruit, train, and engage employees or monitor for infractions. Therefore, the BIAS project will investigate its use in this context. The project will also study how human and societal biases are potentially reproduced in Al-based systems and develop tools to identify and mitigate these biases.
Former Projects
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Robotics4EU (2021–2023) is a Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action that promotes responsible research and innovation principles to the robotics community across healthcare, inspection and maintenance of infrastructure, agri-food, and agile production with the goal of more widespread addoption and societal acceptance of robots.
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INCITE (2021–2025) is a Horizon 2020 EIC Pathfinder project aiming to create a new breakout cancer treatment. It will use novel high-resolution 3D microfabrication technology to engineer a specially tailored microenvironment that will be inhabited by cells central for T cell education in order to generate the fittest anti-tumor T cells for advanced adoptice T cell therapy.
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AUTOWORK (2020–2025) is an international research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council, where Norwegian and Australian researchers are studying the future of work as it is effected by automation, robotization, and digitalization.
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LIFEBOTS-Exchange (2019–2024) is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Action that facilitates researcher and staff exchange between universities and SMEs across Europe and South Korea with the goal of developing a holistic understanding of social robotics in the intersection of care, user interaction, technology, and society. LIFEBOTS is currently suspended due to travel restrictions as a result of COVID-19 but will resume as soon as conditions allow.
Publications
2022
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Søraa, Roger Andre;
Tøndel, Gunhild;
Kharas, Mark William;
Serrano, Artur.
(2022)
What do Older Adults Want from Social Robots? A Qualitative Research Approach to Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Studies.
International Journal of Social Robotics
Academic article
2021
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Kharas, Mark William;
Søraa, Roger Andre;
Moratti, Sofia.
(2021)
Societal Readiness Plan for Robotics4EU.
Robotics4EU Project
Report
2020
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Søraa, Roger Andre;
Manzi, Federico;
Kharas, Mark William;
Marchetti, Antonella;
Massaro, Davide;
Riva, Giuseppe.
(2020)
Othering and Deprioritizing Older Adults’ Lives: Ageist Discourses During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Europe's Journal of Psychology
Editorial
Journal publications
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Søraa, Roger Andre;
Tøndel, Gunhild;
Kharas, Mark William;
Serrano, Artur.
(2022)
What do Older Adults Want from Social Robots? A Qualitative Research Approach to Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Studies.
International Journal of Social Robotics
Academic article
-
Søraa, Roger Andre;
Manzi, Federico;
Kharas, Mark William;
Marchetti, Antonella;
Massaro, Davide;
Riva, Giuseppe.
(2020)
Othering and Deprioritizing Older Adults’ Lives: Ageist Discourses During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Europe's Journal of Psychology
Editorial
Report
-
Kharas, Mark William;
Søraa, Roger Andre;
Moratti, Sofia.
(2021)
Societal Readiness Plan for Robotics4EU.
Robotics4EU Project
Report
Outreach
2023
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Academic lectureFyhn, Håkon; Søraa, Roger Andre; Nergård, Kristoffer; Røyrvik, Jens Olgard Dalseth; Kharas, Mark William; Serrano, Artur. (2023) presentaion of AUTOWORK status and results. NTNU Samfunnsforskning AUTOWORK international workshop , Singapore 2023-03-21 - 2023-03-23
2022
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Academic lectureSøraa, Roger Andre; Kharas, Mark William. (2022) Norwegian Health Care Service: networks of care, robotization, and digitalization . Visiting South Korea National Rehabilitation Center 2022-10-21 -
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Academic lectureCheng, Yu; Moratti, Sofia; Kharas, Mark William; Søraa, Roger Andre. (2022) Health-tech-care in the year 2050: Workshop on the future of technologized care | ROBOTICS4EU. Robotics4EU-NTNU Robotics4EU Project Workshop , Trondheim 2022-05-24 -
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Academic lectureSøraa, Roger Andre; Cheng, Yu; Kharas, Mark William; Moratti, Sofia. (2022) Responsible Robotics workshop: Robots with and for society (RESP-R) workshop . Robotics4EU-NTNU IEEE Ro-Man 2022 , Naples 2022-08-29 - 2022-09-02
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Academic lectureSøraa, Roger Andre; Kharas, Mark William; Cheng, Yu. (2022) LIFEBOTS-EXCHANGE SEMINAR: Visiting secondments from: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) . LIFEBOTS-EXCHANGE SEMINAR 2022-10-18 -
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Academic lectureSøraa, Roger Andre; Cheng, Yu; Kharas, Mark William; Moratti, Sofia. (2022) Engaging citizen stakeholders on the topic of social robotics in healthcare. ISG 2022 ISG 2022: ORAL PAPER PRESENTATION 1: HOUSING AND DAILY LIVING 2022-10-24 - 2022-10-26
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LectureMoratti, Sofia; Søraa, Roger Andre; Cheng, Yu; Kharas, Mark William; Pink, Sarah; Ask, Kristine. (2022) Workshop | Working and Living with Robots. Robotics4EU Healthcare Workshop 2022-01-18 -
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Academic lectureKharas, Mark William; Søraa, Roger Andre; Fyhn, Håkon; Nergård, Kristoffer; Cheng, Yu. (2022) AUTOWORK NTNU General-24th of March Workshop. AUTOWORK NTNU 2022-03-24 - 2022-03-24
2021
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LectureKharas, Mark William. (2021) How to English: Seminar on Academic English for Master's Students. NTNU, Dr. Roger Andre Søraa Master's Student Seminar Series 2021-11-02 - 2021-11-02