Bilge Mutlu is an assistant professor of computer science, psychology, and industrial engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he directs the Wisconsin Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory and a research program on building human-centered principles and methods for the design of robotic technologies and their applications across domestic, workplace, field, and industrial settings. He received his Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute in 2009. His background combines training in interaction design, human-computer interaction, and robotics with industry experience in product design and development. Dr. Mutlu is a former Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the NSF CAREER award and several paper awards and nominations, including HRI 2008, HRI 2009, HRI 2011, UbiComp 2013, IVA 2013, RSS 2013, and HRI 2014. His research has been covered by national and international press including the NewScientist, MIT Technology Review, Discovery News, Science Nation, and Voice of America. He has served in the Steering Committee of the HRI Conference and the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, co-chairing the Program Committees for HRI 2015 and ICSR 2011 and the Program Sub-committees on Design for CHI 2013 and CHI 2014. More information on Dr. Mutlu and his research program can be found at http://bilgemutlu.com and http://hci.cs.wisc.edu.
Astrid Weiss is a postdoctoral research fellow in HRI at the Vision4Robotics group at the ACIN Institute of Automation and Control at Vienna University of Technology (Austria). Her current research focuses on Human-Robot Cooperation in vision-based tasks and service robots for older adults. Her research is inspired by Theory of Mind and the approach of transferring findings from human-human studies to human-robot interaction in order to improve intuitiveness and acceptance. Her general research interests are user-centered design and evaluation studies for Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction with a focus on in-the-wild studies and controlled experiments. She is especially interested in the impact technology has on our everyday life and what makes people accept or reject technology. Before her position in Vienna she was a postdoc researcher at the HCI & Usability Unit, of the ICT&S Center, University of Salzburg, Austria and at the Christian Doppler Laboratory on "Contextual Interfaces" at University of Salzburg. Astrid holds a master's degree in sociology and a PhD in social sciences from the University of Salzburg. During her studies she specialized on methodologies of empirical social research and applied statistics. From September 2011 until January 2012 she was on a short-term sabbatical at the University of Amsterdam, Intelligent Systems Lab and the University of Twente, HMI group to work with Vanessa Evers on Cross-Cultural studies in Human-Robot Interaction.
Dr. Peter Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world. His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of military robotics and UAV drones, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely cited papers on lethal robotics from the perspective of just war theory and human rights. Dr. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, and he is currently writing a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues. Dr. Asaro received his PhD in the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also earned a Master of Arts from the Department of Philosophy, and a Master of Science from the Department of Computer Science.
Dr. Christoph Bartneck is an associate professor and director of postgraduate studies at the HIT Lab NZ of the University of Canterbury. He has a background in Industrial Design and Human-Computer Interaction, and his projects and studies have been published in leading journals, newspapers, and conferences. His interests lie in the fields of Social Robotics, Design Science, and Multimedia Applications. He has worked for several international organizations including the Technology Centre of Hannover (Germany), LEGO (Denmark), Eagle River Interactive (USA), Philips Research (Netherlands), ATR (Japan), Nara Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), and The Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). Christoph is a member of the New Zealand Institute for Language Brain & Behavior, the IFIP Work Group 14.2 and ACM SIGCHI. Dr. Bartneck has an outstanding publication record, including leading journals and conferences. Christoph is serving as an associate editor for the International Journal of Social Robotics, the International Journal of Human Computer Studies and the Entertainment Computing journal. He has been a member of the program committee of the Human-Robot Interaction conference for several years. He organized several workshops at CHI and is frequently invited as a speaker for symposia and conferences. He has been invited to present his work by CMU, the Future University Hakodate, the University of Venice, the Stedelijk Museum and the Pictopia Festival. The press regularly reports on his work, including the New York Times, New Scientist, Natuurwetenschap & Techniek, Volkskrant and Dutch national television and radio stations. Christoph is also the director of the Imagination Station, a LEGO play and learn center in Christchurch.
Wendy Ju is Executive Director for Interaction Design Research at Stanford's Center for Design Research, and an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Design Program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her research is primarily focused on the design of interactive devices, particularly human-robot interaction and autonomous car interfaces. Dr. Ju has played a broad and long-standing role in the Bay Area design research community. She was the founder and editor-in-chief of Ambidextrous Magazine, Stanford's journal of design. Dr. Ju frequently collaborates and consults with local technology companies on interaction technologies, human interaction experiments, and enabling research. She has been instrumental in creating hands-on interaction design curriculum for K-12 students, undergraduate and graduate programs at Nueva School, Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, Stanford's Electrical Engineering department and Stanford's Music department. Dr. Ju has a PhD from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master's Degree from the MIT Media Lab.
Dr. Adriana TAPUS is a Full Professor at ENSTA-ParisTech since May 2009. She received her Habilitation in Computer Science from UPMC (France) in 2011, her PhD in Computer Science from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in 2005. She worked as an Associate Researcher at the University of Southern California (USC), where she worked on the development of socially assistive robotics, also participating to activity in machine learning, human sensing, and human-robot interaction. Her main interest is on long-term learning (i.e., in particular in interaction with humans) and on-line robot behavior adaptation to external environmental factors. She has more than 100 publications in well-known journals and conferences, and she received the Romanian Academy Award for her contributions in assistive robotics in 2010. She is involved in many French National projects and EU Horizon 2020 projects in assistive applications.