Profiles

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where I research and develop socially intelligent robotic systems that support health and mental well-being. I received my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, with a specialization in Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI), from the University of Waterloo. My PhD research pioneered novel applications of social robots in robot-assisted interventions for social anxiety.

My research interests and background are in human–computer/robot interaction (HCI/HRI), artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), social robotics, health informatics, and assistive technologies. Through interdisciplinary and human-centred design approaches, I design and evaluate adaptive technologies with an emphasis on developing systems grounded in real-world human needs.

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. My research focusses on improving the user experience during human-robot interaction working on a project that uses a social robot to support care for children with amblyopia. During my PhD at the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany, I worked on changes in trust when training a robot and using cognitive models to study embodiment of robotic limbs.

I am a PhD graduate from Systems Design Engineering Department. My doctoral research pioneered “Robot-Mediated Applied Drama” as a genre of social robots in education — I borrowed from dramaturgy and game-based learning to design social robotic systems that can be used for fostering anti-bullying peer-support between children.