Project Grant 2552085

The National Science Foundation Division of Computing and Communication Foundations awarded Northeastern University $845,345 on October 1, 2026, under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program to develop an AI-driven platform for training social skills through interaction with adaptive virtual agents. Work will continue through September 30, 2029, and will be performed in Boston, Massachusetts.

The platform enables learners to participate in open-ended scenarios with multimodal virtual agents that combine language, gesture, gaze, posture, and facial expression to simulate complex face-to-face interactions. A central focus is theory of mind—the ability to reason about others' beliefs and intentions—which the system is designed to train and evaluate across diverse domains including education, healthcare, security, intercultural communication, and mental health. The platform employs a multi-agent large-language model framework consisting of four specialized components: a designer LLM that creates personalized scenarios in collaboration with learners, a director LLM that dynamically shapes scenarios to enhance flexibility and engagement, multimodal virtual human LLMs that generate rich verbal and nonverbal behaviors conveying underlying social and emotional cues, and a learning and alignment LLM that uses human feedback and preference modeling to iteratively refine agent behaviors and improve adaptability and realism. No sub-awards are planned for this award.