Keynote speakers at RO-MAN 2025
Find below the list of keynote speakers at RO-MAN 2025. More keynotes titles and abstract will be announced soon.
Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn
Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, Dr. rer. nat., IEEE Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is Full Professor and Canada 150 Research Chair in Intelligent Robotics at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. She is a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is cross-appointed with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, as well as the Department of Systems Design Engineering, and the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at University of Waterloo. In Waterloo she directs the Social and Intelligent Robotics Laboratory. Her research areas are social robotics, human-robot interaction, assistive robotics, cognitive and developmental robotics. She has published 130 peer-reviewed journal articles (H-Index 95), and frequently gives invited keynote presentations at international conferences. She has several senior Editorial Roles in international journals.
Title:
Co-designing our future with social robots - A journey from lab-based experiments to real-world field studies
Abstract:
For more than two decades my research team has studied social robots in multiple contexts and application areas, using a variety of qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches. Our goals have been to find out how to better design, study and deploy social robots - in contexts ranging from socially assistive to physical human-robot interaction. I've been involved in many lab-based experiments, field studies e.g. in schools or therapy centres, and many studies in smart home environments - the latter aiming to bridge the gap between lab studies and real world deployment of social robots. My research team has used a number of measures, subjective and objective, in order to gain a more comprehensive picture of users' experiences, acceptance and perceptions of social robots, including therapeutic, educational or clinical applications. In my talk I want to share some of our findings and challenges of this journey into how social robots could find their place in a human-inhabited world - not as replacements of people, but as tools, collaborators, companions and co-workers.
Professor Lynne Baillie
Professor Lynne Baillie is a Professor of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University and National Robotarium lead for human-robot interaction, assistive living and health. Prof Baillie’s research interest is Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) that’s the study and subsequent improvement of human interaction with robots, and the development and evaluation of novel interactive technologies with a focus on robots. Prof Baillie is the Director of the Interactive and Trustworthy Technologies Research Group at Heriot-Watt University, researching how people interact with robotic technology, and the impacts that technology has on the population in terms of convenience, usability, performance and security. She is based in the National Robotarium which is a world-leading institute for robotics and artificial intelligence, boasting unrivalled facilities to explore collaborative interaction between humans, robots and their environments. Her work has attracted funding from UK research councils, the EU, and national and local government, as well as international companies such as Siemens and Microsoft, and the charity sector including Heritage Lottery Fund and Chest Heart Stroke Scotland. She is the author of more than 100 peer reviewed scientific papers.
Title:
There’s no place like home: How robots are starting to transform how we live but not our homes
Abstract:
Robots are starting to move from labs and industrial spaces into our homes. However, one lesson I have learned from the last twenty years in designing technology for the home is that the technology we put in homes rarely changes the homes themselves so we must understand how to design any human robot interactions very carefully to work in this messy and unpredictable environment. In my talk I will share how I have investigated and designed technology for the home over several years, what lessons I have learned that are applicable to our interactions with robots in the home.
Prof. Michita Imai
Michita Imai is a Professor of the Faculty of science and technology at Keio university and a Researcher at ATR Intelligent Robot Laboratories. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Keio Univ. in 2002. In 1994, he joined NTT Human Interface Laboratories. He joined the ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories in 1997. He was a visiting scholar of University of Chicago from 2009-2010. His research interests include autonomous robots, human-robot interaction, speech dialogue systems, humanoid, and spontaneous behaviours. He is a member of Information and Communication Engineers Japan (IEICE-J), the Information Processing Society of Japan, the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, Human Interface Society, IEEE, and ACM.
Title:
From Nonverbal Cues to Relationship-Driven AI: Three Decades of Evolving Human-Robot Communication
Abstract:
Over the last three decades, my work has explored how humans and robots form deeper connections, beginning with nonverbal cues such as gaze and gestures. Early studies highlighted attention mechanisms and “viewpoint sharing,” showing how physical interaction and shared context shape communication. Later, integrating CG agents into robotic platforms demonstrated how digital familiarity transitions into tangible embodiment, strengthening user bonds. Wearable telepresence systems like TEROOS further extended social presence, enabling remote participants to engage as if physically there. Most recently, large language models have driven “relationship-focused AI,” allowing robots to adapt their social stances through real-time context inference.
Prof. David A. Abbink
Prof.David A. Abbink is a full Professor in Human-Robot Interaction, 2 days in the department of Cognitive Robotics of the Mechanical Engineering Faculty, and 2 days in the department of Sustainable Design Engineering of the Industrial Design Faculty, both at Delft University of Technology.
He leads the transdisciplinary research and innovation center FRAIM, that aims to shape the future of physical work, with and for workers. Especially for these efforts he received the Simon Stevin Premie, the “Dutch Nobel Prize”. David is a VENI and VIDI laureate, was voted best teacher of his department for seven consecutive years, best teacher of his faculty twice, and received an international open courseware award for his course “The Human Controller”. He co-founded the department of Cognitive Robotics and the master programme MSc Robotics at TU Delft, and founded the Human-Robot Interaction group. His research on human-automation interaction has won several awards and received funding from major commercial partners such as Nissan, Renault, Boeing, Schiphol, KLM, Erasmus Medical Centre.
Title:
Shaping the future of physical work – from human-robot interaction towards worker-robot relations
Abstract:
David will share his journey from a disciplinary expert in Human-Robot Interaction, to founding and leading Transdisciplinary Research and Innovation centre FRAIM – and what this meant he had to learn and unlearn.
He will advocate for an integrated effort to address the complex societal challenge of shaping the future of physical work, and how the lense of worker-robot relations can be helpful for organizing such an integrated effort. This is urgent, since stagnating labour productivity, a growing shortage of workers, and emerging technological capabilities require us to rethink what constitutes attractive work, and how to steer research and innovation towards that. Technology, like robotics, may help but only when developed with and for the workers that do the physical work in vital sectors like nursing, logistics and manufacturing.
Currently, too many innovations fail on the work floor, and there is little steering towards the attractiveness of work. This is due to a fragmented approach to the complexity of technology, people and organisations, in which employees typically do not have a say. This fragmentation exists both in practice and in academia.
Transdisciplinary research and innovation is needed to navigate this complexity, and allow for the emergence of not only a viable, but also a meaningful and just future of work. David will explain how ideas for human-robot interaction were stretched by a consortium of 35 academics (technical, design and social scientists). Together, they arrived at the concept of worker-robot relations: useful to develop an academic research agenda relevant to navigate transdisciplinary complexities around system change, value aligment, integrating perspectives (what expertises are needed for observations and interventions), and the required processes (to bring together long-cyclic academic work and short-cyclic innovation with workers). He will draw on ongoing projects in care work and repair&maintenance work, showing the potential and the barriers for robotic systems to contribute to more attractive work.