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Department of Information Technology

Ginevra Castellano

Professor at Department of Information Technology, Vi3; Human Machine Interaction

Email:
ginevra.castellano[AT-sign]it.uu.se
Mobile phone:
+46 70 4250200
Visiting address:
Room ÅNG 104135 hus 10, Lägerhyddsvägen 1
Postal address:
Box 337
751 05 UPPSALA

Short presentation

I am a Professor in Intelligent Interactive Systems at the Department of Information Technology of Uppsala University, Sweden, where I lead the Uppsala Social Robotics Lab.

By adopting an interdisciplinary approach grounded in principles from the social sciences, I aim to develop computational social abilities that allow robots to behave in a socially intelligent way in natural interaction with humans.

Academic merits: Docent

Keywords: social robotics human-robot interaction intelligent interactive systems affective computing robot ethics

My research is in the area of social robotics and human-robot interaction, addressing questions on how we can build human-robot interactions that are trustworthy, including human-robot relationship formation, robot ethics, robot autonomy and human oversight, gender fairness, robot transparency and trust, both from the perspective of developing computational skills for robotic systems, and their evaluation with human users to study acceptance and social consequences.

By adopting an interdisciplinary approach grounded in principles from the social sciences, I aim to develop computational social abilities that allow robots to behave in a socially intelligent way in natural interaction with humans. The natural testbed for my research are socially assistive scenarios where robots provide not only physical, but also social support to humans, where robotic technologies have the potential to bring benefits to the society we live in, for example in application areas such as education and assistive technology, by enhancing the lives of children and other groups that require specialised support and intervention.

From 2012 to 2016 I was the coordinator of the EMOTE (EMbOdied perceptive Tutors for Empathy-based learning) project, which developed educational robots to support teachers in a classroom environment.

I was a General Chair at IVA 2017 and will be a General Chair at HRI 2023.

I am an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI and the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. I was the recipient of the 10-Year Technical Impact Award at the ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction 2019 and the Frontiers in Robotics and AI 2021 Outstanding Associate Editor Award.

Current projects

Children’s Intuitive Theory of AI (2021-2026; Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation); co-PI

SymAware (Symbolic logic framework for situational awareness in mixed autonomy) (2022-2025; Horizon Europe); PI for Uppsala University

Robot-assisted diagnosis of women’s depression around childbirth (2021-2025; Centre for Women’s Mental Health during their Reproductive Lifespan (WoMHeR), Uppsala University); PI

The ethics and social consequences of AI & caring robots. Learning trust, empathy and accountability (2020-2024; Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation); PI for Uppsala University

Deep Learning for Emotional Alignment in Human-Robot Interaction (2021-2024; Swedish Research Council); PI

Explainable deep learning methods for human-human and human-robot interaction (2020-2024; Centre for Interdisciplinary Mathematics, Uppsala University); PI

Deep-learning in virtual reality for effective human-robot group collaboration (2021-2024; Swedish Research Council); co-PI

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Ginevra Castellano