Chaiwoo Lee, PhD
Research Scientist, MIT AgeLab MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
- Cambridge MA
Dr. Lee studies multiple generations’ acceptance of and experiences with new technologies to inform design of future services and products.
MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
View more experts managed by MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
Media
Social
Biography
Chaiwoo’s research focuses on understanding acceptance and use of technologies across generations, and looks into people’s perceptions, attitudes and experiences with new devices and services. Across different application domains – including home technologies, vehicle automation, social robots and more – her research seeks to deeply understand user behaviors and decisions, to discuss issues around societal impacts, and to find implications for human-centered design of future products and services.
Through research projects and other professional services, Chaiwoo has worked with companies and organizations in a variety of industries including consumer electronics, financial services, healthcare, transportation services and automotive manufacturing, insurance and more. Her studies and perspectives have been presented in academic journals and conferences, as well as through popular outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, MIT Technology Review, and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Chaiwoo received her Ph.D. in Engineering Systems from MIT, and her M.S. and B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Seoul National University.
Areas of Expertise
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PhD
Engineering Systems Division
2014
Seoul National University
MS
Industrial Engineering - Human Factors
2010
Seoul National University
BS
Industrial Engineering
2008
Languages
- Korean
- English
Media Appearances
Happy birthday, baby! What the future holds for those born today
MIT Technology Review online
2024-08-15
Well, sort of. Chaiwoo Lee, a research scientist at the MIT AgeLab, thinks that in 75 years, your home will be a kind of roommate—“someone who cohabitates that space with you,” she says. “It reacts to your feelings, maybe understands you.”
The robot takeover of Seoul, and a new era of technology
MIT AgeLab online
2022-08-28
This preponderance of technology in Seoul was all new to me, and it left me with a few questions.
(Selfish) hopes for a self-driving future
MIT AgeLab online
2022-03-24
That finding may be the result of younger respondents’ greater familiarity and comfort with new vehicle technologies, but it may also point to a lack of interest that younger Americans have in getting behind the wheel.
Research Papers
Managing Longevity Risks: Consumer Attitudes Toward and Experiences With Financial Products
Innovation in AgingChaiwoo Lee, Kathryn Warren, Lisa D’Ambrosio, Sophia Ashebir, Joseph Coughlin
2025-12-31
Financial products such as annuities, life insurance, and disability insurance are positioned to play a key role in future planning, including retirement, by providing financial security; hedging against different kinds of financial risks, including illness, injury, or death; and maintaining a steady income stream throughout older age. A national online survey of employed American adults ages 25 to 67, with medium to high income or investable assets, explored consumers’ sense of preparedness for their financial futures and lives in older age.
Factors Impacting Family Caregivers’ Adoption of Digital and AI-Enabled Technologies for Care-Related Tasks
Innovation in AgingNiels Wu, Adam Felts, Alexa Balmuth, Chaiwoo Lee, Lisa D’Ambrosio, Samantha Brady, Sophia Ashebir, Joseph Coughlin
2025-12-31
Family caregivers are critical to the delivery of care for older adults, but may experience physical, financial, and emotional strains from the caregiving role. Although existing research has established the capacity for digital technologies to ease these strains, adoption remains limited for some technologies that could support care-related tasks, especially for newer, AI-enabled technologies, indicating a need to explore where caregivers encounter barriers related to usability, cost, availability, or value. In this study, an online questionnaire was fielded to members of the MIT AgeLab’s CareHive Panel, an open membership panel of informal caregivers who either currently provide or formerly provided care to an adult family member.
Mapping the caregiver experience: predicting dimensions of caregiver strain through task-based profiles
Research on AgingSamantha Brady, Sophia Ashebir, Lisa D’Ambrosio, Alexa Balmuth, Adam Felts, Chaiwoo Lee
2025-04-14
Objective: Family caregiving is a prevalent, diverse, and often challenging experience. We develop caregiving activity profiles to better understand how sets of care-tasks contribute to various aspects of strain.
Methods: Using diary data from a survey of 213 family caregivers in the U.S., we perform latent class analysis to group commonly occurring care-related tasks into activity profiles. We then use these classifications to predict physical, financial, and emotional strain.
Awards
Excellent Paper Award
Issued by IEEE Communications Society and Korea Information and Communication Society
Sep 2011
