Susan Calvin
| Susan Calvin | |
|---|---|
Susan Calvin, as portrayed by Bridget Moynahan, in the 2004 film adaptation, I, Robot.
|
|
| Created by | Isaac Asimov |
| Portrayed by | |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Robopsychologist |
| Nationality | American |
Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century. She was the main character in many of Asimov's short stories concerning robots, which were later collected in the books I, Robot and The Complete Robot.
According to Asimov's fictional history of robotics, Susan Calvin was born in 1982, the same year that US Robots and Mechanical Men was incorporated. At 16, she wrote the first of many papers on robotics, a Physics-1 paper entitled 'Practical Aspects of Robotics'. This was after attending a Psycho-Math seminar at which Dr Alfred Lanning of US Robots demonstrated the first mobile robot to be equipped with a voice. As quoted in I, Robot: "Susan said nothing at that seminar; took no part in the hectic discussion period that followed. She was a frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a world she disliked by a mask-like expression and a hypertrophy of intellect. But as she watched and listened, she felt the stirrings of a cold enthusiasm."
Graduating with a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 2003, she began post-graduate work in cybernetics, learning to construct positronic brains such that responses to given stimuli could be accurately predicted. She joined US Robots in 2008 as their first Robopsychologist, having earned her PhD. By 2029, when she left Earth for the first time to visit Hyper Base, her formal title was Head Psychologist.
In Asimov's stories, her emotionless brilliance is portrayed positively, when she solves issues with robots manufactured by her company. Usually, she is tripped up when she is swayed by emotion (in "Liar!" and "Lenny").
In the Mickey Zucker Reichert book I, Robot: To Protect, while working as a Psychiatrist in 2035, she was handed four cases: a traumatized girl that has not talked for 6 years, an obese boy that can't stop eating, a teenaged girl with "dementia, status post A-V fistula repair", and a 4-year-old girl accused of attempted murder.
...
Wikipedia