Meet the social robots team!
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Prof. Emily S. Cross
Emily is a professor of social robotics at the University of Glasgow, a professor of human neuroscience at Macquarie University, and an honorary professor of cognitive neuroscience at Bangor University. She co-directs the Social Brain in Action Laboratory, and also serves as the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded Social Robots project. Emily completed her PhD with Scott Grafton at Dartmouth College, and then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig, Germany) and the Behavioural Science Institute and Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands). Emily has been building and collecting robots since a young age (more aesthetically interesting than functional ones!), and looks forward to helping chart the course to peaceful coexistence with our robotic overlords of the future.
PROGRAMMER & TECHNICAL GURU
Bishakha Chaudhury
Bishakha comes from the city of Kolkata in India. She has a BSc in Computer Science from Fergusson College (Pune, India), a Masters in Computer Application (Chennai University, India) and Masters in Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics from the University Of Sussex (UK). All the computer games she played while growing up piqued her interest in virtual reality, computer gameplay and artificial intelligence. Her masters dissertation and the game mods and demos she made ensured her a career in the games industry in London. She worked mainly as an AI programmer and was responsible for AI racers and developing variety in the characteristics of non-human players. After this, she joined a team working on computer-aided orthopaedic surgery, where a robotic hand was used for performing precision hip and knee surgery. She then followed her family to scenic North Wales and worked in the local IT industry for six years as a senior developer and technical analyst. As she was looking for an opportunity to return to AI and robotics, the Social Robots project was the perfect opportunity for her to do so. In her spare time she likes reading, going on hikes, dabbling with paint, and on those rare sunny days, taking her two boys to the beach.
Aitor Miguel Blanco
Aitor is an engineer from the region of Asturias, in the north of Spain. He studied Automation and Industrial Electronics in the University of Oviedo (Spain) and has an MSc in Robot Systems from Southern Denmark University (Denmark). He started his journey through the robotics field during his bachelor's degree, where he learned about robot control and specialized in computer vision. During his masters, he started using artificial intelligence, and he explored the use of artificial neural networks for the interaction between robots and their environment. After finishing his MSc, he worked as a Software Test Engineer in the machine control sector for two years, before he moved to Sydney (Australia).
Aitor is very passionate about technology, and he is excited about taking care of new robots and help them deal with the complex world we live in. He is also passionate about sports and music, and during his free time, it is easy to find him swimming, climbing or running around.
Amol Deshmukh
Amol originally from Pune, India completed his PhD in Human-robot interaction from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. He moved to the University of Glasgow as a postdoctoral research associate in 2016. His expertise is in social signal processing, non-verbal behaviour generation, User-Centred design, and machine learning. He has built robust robotic systems, deployed and evaluated social robots for 4 European Union projects in real-world environments such as workplaces (long-term interaction), schools, and public spaces. Amol has pioneered human-robot interaction research in developing countries. His research has received global media coverage such as, the BBC, The Telegraph, IEEE Spectrum, and numerous media articles. He joins SoBA Lab as a programmer and a researcher. In his spare time Amol enjoys playing sports, photography and hiking.
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW
Dr. Ruud Hortensius
Ruud, a Dutchman, obtained his PhD under supervision of Prof. Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Before that, he completed a BSc in Social Work, a BSc in Psychology, an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In his research he investigates the neural mechanisms of positive and negative social interactions. He continued to explore these topics as a postdoctoral researcher on Dutch and South African soil at Maastricht University and the University of Cape Town. Excited by the unique insights robots offer human psychology and neuroscience, he is eager to explore the dynamic social interactions between robots and less robot-like beings. In his spare time, he is an avid reader, emerging hiker, and an unapologetic Smiths enthusiast.
Maki Rooksby
Originally a developmental psychologist with core interests in social cognition, Maki gained a Ph.D. on theory of mind and sarcasm in preschoolers and then worked on autobiographical memory in infants (Lancaster), sandwiched with a lectureship (Manchester) in between. Following a career break to raise a family, she hopped to health research on analysis of telephone consultation with NHS 24 and an online intervention for dentally anxious children (St Andrews and Dundee) and more recently around mental health, children and technology (IHW, Glasgow). She is excited about her adventure with Social Robotics where she can revisit and nurture her set of skills from past research as well as reflect her experience of arriving in the UK as an undergraduate from Japan where she was born and brought up.
Being a busy mum of two human children and a lovable/handful canine baby, her life and work are constantly intertwined, which she considers one of the greatest blessings of being an academic. When time allows, she likes to play tennis, go for walks on hills and mountains, or make/mend things with hands, from cooking, baking or sewing.
Kohinoor Darda
Kohinoor hails from the city of Pune in India. She obtained her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Richard Ramsey at the Social Brain in Action Laboratory, Bangor University, UK. In her PhD research, she investigated the neural mechanisms of imitation using both behavioural and neuroimaging (fMRI) techniques. Before her PhD, she completed a BA in Psychology at Fergusson University (Pune, India), and an MSc in Foundations of Clinical Psychology at Bangor University, UK. Kohinoor is also a trained professional Indian classical dancer (Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam). She is currently continuing her scientific journey in the SoBA lab as a postdoc working with Prof. Emily Cross, and is excited to integrate all things dance with all things neuroscience. Always on the lookout for new adventures, Kohinoor enjoys traveling and reading, and dreams of becoming a skydiving instructor in the future, among many other things.
Nathan (Nate) Caruana
Nate grew up in the outer rural suburbs of Sydney where his first pet was a retired dairy cow. He completed a Bachelor of Psychology (Hons) and a PhD in Human Cognition and Brain Sciences at Macquarie University. Nate’s research seeks to develop research methods that allow us to study the neurocognitive mechanisms of non-verbal social information processing and interaction. To do this he has been using interactive eye- and motion-tracking, immersive virtual reality, psychophysics and neuroimaging techniques to capture the dynamic and reciprocal aspects of social interaction whilst balancing the need for experimental control and objective measurement. Nate is also passionate about understanding neurodiverse social interactions, and exploring how we can use artificial agents and other technologies to make social interactions more inclusive and enjoyable for everyone. Part of Nate’s past research has explored how beliefs and expectations influence how we interact with artificial agents (virtual avatars) and he is excited to explore this further with social robots! You’ll find Nate most Saturdays in the back yard wearing his Akubra hat and belting out classic 80’s hits while gardening and acting busy. He also loves rural towns and antique shops, whisky, cheesecake, Sunday roasts and making his daughter laugh – usually by singing.
Alysha Nguyen
Alysha is originally from Sydney, Australia, where she completed her BPsych(Hons) and PhD at the University of New South Wales. During her PhD, she investigated human gaze perception and attentional cueing in 3D space, and became interested in how we perceive and make sense of complex social cues during our interactions with others. Alysha is excited to join the SoBA lab as a postdoc working with Dr Richard Ramsey and is keen to research the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in human social cognition. In her free time, she enjoys playing the piano, writing, painting, reading and bouldering.
DOCTORAL STUDENTS
Ayeh Alhasan
Ayeh has always been fascinated by the way people are able to socially interact and communicate in a rather effortless manner. It was not the use of words that caught her interest the most, but rather our ability to share and understand one another even without using words. The social difficulties associated with certain neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, had her perplexed. She was constantly frustrated by the lack of answers to her questions. This led to a keen interest in how our brains typically develop, allowing us to function as social beings within society. Ayeh has only recently started pursuing her interests in the field of cognitive science after moving to Sydney from Dubai, where she was born and raised. She completed her MRes degree at Macquarie University In 2019 and is thrilled to be pursuing her interests further by taking up a PhD under the supervision of Professor Emily Cross. For her PhD, she plans to further understand the role of action kinematics in the prediction of others’ internal mental states - such as intentions - by both neurotypicals and autistics. She is also interested in investigating this phenomenon in social robotics to help understand whether we attribute and predict internal states to non-human agents using their kinematics and whether they can be optimized to help make interactions more intuitive. Aside from her research interests, Ayeh loves food and enjoys trying different authentic dishes from the various cuisines around the world, as well as attempting to recreate them. She also enjoys travelling and getting to know people of diverse cultural backgrounds.
Robin Bretin
From the deep forests of Sologne in France, Robin grew to become an extremely curious person, sensitive to his environment and beings living in it. This curiosity and sensitivity led me, one way or another, to the National Graduate School of Cognitive Engineering (ENSC) in Bordeaux, France. Cognitics aims to understand and improve the flow of human-machine symbiosis, in terms of performance, substitution, safety, ease and comfort, and augment human through technologies.
Robin is passionate about our future and the infinite possibilities that are presented to us. Being part of the SOCIAL CDT programme and SoBA lab as a PhD student is the first step to what he hopes will be a great journey toward the integration of new technologies in our society, designed around and for humanity.
His doctoral project focus on the study of human behaviour around Social Drones in Virtual Reality (VR). Three objects of study, three questions : Human - How do they behave around drones ? Drones - How to make them social ? And Virtual Reality - What are the limits and capabilities of using VR as a research approach ?
Jean-Noël George
Jean-Noël was born and raised in London, where he completed his BSc Psychology degree at Goldsmiths, University of London. At Goldsmiths, Jean-Noël fostered a love for social psychology, especially social behaviour and perception. Between studies, he was keen on research involving social robots, which can help us to better understand human behaviour and interactions. Enticed by Glasgow University’s social robotic platform and enamoured by Glasgow City, he moved to Glasgow and is currently undertaking an MSc in Research Methods in Psychological Science. Through his studies, he has taken a particular interest in social robot design, specifically: socio-ethical considerations, facilitating positive human-robot interactions, and the integration of social robots in everyday life. He is happy and excited to be part of the SoBA lab and is working with Guy Laban on self-disclosure. In his spare time, he likes to cook and has a love for music.
Anna Henschel
Originally from the cold and rainy north of Germany, Anna completed a BSc in Psychology at the University of Konstanz, where she developed a passion for neuroscience and all things brain related. She left for the Netherlands in 2015 to pursue a Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuropsychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, exchanging her running route along Lake Constance for the Amstel river. Topics she is interested in include (but are not limited to) empathy, emotion regulation and our social (as well as antisocial) brain. Besides neuroscience, she likes to explore as many bookstores as she can, always leaving with a book (or two), British TV shows, and taking lots and lots of pictures on travels abroad. Anna is excited to join the Social Robots project in September 2017, to find out more about the underlying neural mechanisms of socializing with our robotic friends. After getting acquainted with them in graphic novels, movies and books, she cannot wait to delve into the intricacies of interacting with robots in real life, upgrading from science fiction to science.
Te-Yi Hsieh
Te-Yi grew up in the hustle and bustle of Taipei, and completed a BSc in Psychology at Chung Shan Medical University and came to the beautiful North Wales for her MSc at Bangor University. During her Masters in Psychology Research, Te-Yi developed a great interest in human-robot interaction (HRI) and investigated people’s responses to a social robot’s negative emotions in a competitive game. Such research experience also inspired her to keep pursuing the passion in this field. She is now undertaking an ERC funded PhD in Neuroscience and Psychology under the supervision of Prof. Emily Cross at the University of Glasgow. Te-Yi strives to understand how human minds respond to human-like artificial agents from both cognitive and social psychology perspectives, in order to gain insight into our mental processes and also to see what psychologists can do to bring about ideal HRI. In her spare time, she likes to read, paint, watch movies, and is recently an amateur translator.
Laura Jastrzab
Laura is an American who moved to the UK from the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, and joined Professor Cross' lab in 2018. Prior to pursuing a PhD, Laura worked in several research institutions around the US and has also worked as a registered Educational Psychologist in the UK and US.
Laura is interested in understanding more about how humans and robots interact in social situations and whether, under certain conditions, humans may perceive that a robot "has a mind of its own." Further, she would like to understand how these perceptions might be different across the lifespan, between cultures, and between those with typical and atypical social development. Laura is thrilled to be joining the Social Robots Lab! She will be working on a Social Robots project to understand more about the neural mechanisms involved in various human and robot social interactions.
In her free time, she enjoys cooking, gardening, diy projects, and getting outdoors (especially, along the coastline or in the mountains).
Guy Laban
Guy comes from sunny Tel Aviv, Israel, where he completed his bachelor studies in Communication Science at the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya (IDC), specializing in interactive communications. During his studies Guy was a member of IDC’s media innovation lab (miLAB), developing robotic prototypes and mobile applications to study their influence on human behaviours. Eager to continue exploring, Guy conducted his Research Master’s studies at the University of Amsterdam focusing on human-agent cooperation, personalized interactions, and the role of discourse in agents’ embodied cognition.
Guy is pursuing his PhD as an ESR member of ENTWINE, the European Training Network on Informal Care, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovation Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Union. His research examines how caregivers disclose their emotions and needs to social robots, and how these, in turn, can reduce caregivers’ stress and burden. This project is aimed at developing personalized solutions, interventions, and recommendations to support and promote caregivers’ well-being using social robots.
In his free time, Guy enjoys spending time in the mountains hiking, snowboarding, and photographing.
Katerina Manoli
Originally from the sunny coasts of Greece, Katerina completed a joint degree in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Glasgow (UK). It was then that she discovered that she's a bit of a figurative zombie, in that she's really passionate about brains (in a non-carnivorous fashion, of course). She moved on to do her MSc with the Social Robots team in the SoBA Lab, and she also worked with research teams at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (NL) and Harvard University (USA) to explore how social cognition can shape our interaction with robotic agents, and vice versa. She's currently really excited about her PhD under the supervision of Dr Richard Ramsey, in which she's looking into how major brain networks interact to give rise to fundamental aspects of social cognition. Katerina is also a visual artist who likes to integrate AI and immersive virtual reality to explore the aesthetic side of the uncanny valley. More often than not she can be found at a music gig, drawing on the metro, stargazing on the beach, or discovering a brand new way to procrastinate.
Henry Powell
Henry recently switched over to the so-bots lab from a PhD in philosophy of cognitive science at the University of Warwick where his research focused on computational models of motor control in individual and joint action. At the end of 2017 and into the summer of 2018 he worked as a researcher at the Cognitive Robotics, and Interaction Lab at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy under the supervision of Dr. Alessandra Sciutti and Dr. Francesco Rea. This year he will begin a PhD in social robotics under the supervision of Prof. Emily Cross as part of the so-bots lab in Glasgow. His research interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience, robotics, and computer science. Specifically he is interested in the computational modelling of social cognitive function in human-human and human-robot interaction and the development of these models into workable frameworks for applications in real-world robotics platforms. His secondary interest is in the application of machine learning in this area and how Bayesian deep learning in particular can be used to shed light on questions of implicit communication in social interaction between humans and robots.In his spare time Henry enjoys running, cooking, and playing video games. He is also an avid and unashamed player of Dungeons and Dragons and hopes to one day be the owner of a fleet of giant dogs.
Katie Riddoch
Originally from the northern town of Oswaldtwistle, Katie moved to sunny Cornwall to study Marine Sciences and the innovative technologies used in the Renewable Energy sector. She then turned her attention to how technology can be used to help people more directly and began her studies at Bangor University. Katie studied BSc Psychology with Neuropsychology whilst volunteering in a number of the research labs, then an ESRC funded MSc in Psychological Research. Katie is excited to continue her studies at the University of Glasgow, undertaking an ESRC Industrial Strategy Studentship under the supervision of Prof. Emily Cross. Her PhD will aim to better understand the role social robots could play in healthy independent ageing, and how our attitudes and perceptions of robots might change over time. When Katie isn’t dancing or bouldering, she enjoys watching the documentaries of Louis Theroux and attempting to cook.
Rebecca Smith
As a born and bred Scottish lass, Rebecca has spent the past 5 years completing her BSc and MSc studies in Psychology at the University of Glasgow. She is very excited to continue her journey there as a new member of the SoBA Lab on an ESRC-funded PhD under the supervision of Professor Emily Cross. Her love of classical ballet and passion for social psychology were the driving forces behind her interest in how individuals identify emotion from the body in motion. She will be exploring this area further with the SoBA Lab and is looking forward to implementing the ideas with the help of her new robotic friends! When not in the lab Rebecca can be found brunching with friends, attending life drawing sessions, preparing choreography to teach to her ballet class or searching the west end for pugs to cuddle.
MASTER STUDENTS
Dorina de Jong
Dorina grew up at Terschelling, one of the beautiful Frisian Islands in the northwest of the Netherlands. To get to know more about how humans perceive and interact with the world around them, she moved to Amsterdam, where she completed a BSc in Psychobiology at the University of Amsterdam. Dorina is currently pursuing an MSc in Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Groningen and is thrilled to join the SoBA lab in the vibrant city of Glasgow. Her interest in human-machine interaction developed during her undergraduate when she got to work on a project which let people steer a drone by using brain signals. She is now excited to delve into the wonders of how humans socially interact with robots, and is curious whether we can really feel bad for a robot. Dorina will be working with Ruud, Anna and Te-Yi on empathy in human-robot teams. In her free time, she likes to read and listen to podcasts about mythology, Harry Potter and comedy. She is also excited to fill up her time exploring bonnie Scotland by foot, train and boat.
Rosanne Timmerman
Rosanne is from Utrecht, the Netherlands and finished her Psychology bachelor at the University of Utrecht. During her bachelor she went to Belfast, North-Ireland for a semester. Here she followed courses that were quite different from the courses at home, like Applied Animal Psychology and Criminological Theory. She is currently in her second year of the research master Neuroscience and Cognition, and she will be doing her minor research project here with us in Glasgow. She will work on a fNIRS project studying real life interactions between robots and humans.
Last year she did an 10 month internship at the University Medical Centre of Utrecht in which she studied the reorganization of the auditory cortex of deaf people by using fMRI.
She loves travelling (hence the studying abroad), animals, painting, drawing (anything creative) and working out (especially with friends!).
RESEARCH TECHNICIAN
Michaela Kent
After moving around for a while, Michaela’s family settled in the outskirts of Inverness where she grew up and fell in love with pretty much everything the Highlands of Scotland have to offer – bonnie views, good hills to climb, ceilidhs and the occasional dram! After spending a year volunteering in Honduras, she moved to Glasgow to pursue her studies. A BSc in Human Biology, Psychology and Sociology gave Michaela a multidisciplinary background and led her to write a dissertation focussing on neurodevelopment in children raised in orphanages, triggering a fascination in neuroscience. She then went on to complete an MSc in Brain Science and worked primarily on a project exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and Theory of Mind. Michaela now returns to the lab to work as a research technician with Ruud on the BIAL-foundation funded project mapping the socialness gradient in the brain. Specifically, we are looking at how people attribute socialness between groups in society and towards nonhuman entities through anthropomorphism and dehumanisation using behavioural and neuroimaging (fMRI) data.
ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
Merel Bekking
Merel Bekking is a contemporary product designer from The Netherlands. In 2012, she graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts (NL). Merel likes to work on bigger design thinking projects involving cross-sector collaborations. These big research projects are more focused on questions rather than solutions or products. She collaborated with plastic producers, South African artists, traditional Sotho wavers, taxidermists and neuroscientists. Her work has been funded by the Creative Industries Fund NL, Creative Action Llandudno and the K. F. Hein Fonds, and is developed on her own initiative and in commission. Merel has exhibited and presented at the Milan Design Week, Dutch Design Week, DIY Berlin, the World Architecture Festival in Singapore, and more. Between 2015 and 2016 Merel was working and living in Cape Town (South Africa), and in the beginning of 2017 she relocated to Bangor, North Wales. Merel is very excited to be collaborating with the SoBA lab on the Social Robots project and work together on the exciting robotic petting zoo.
ALUMNI
Dr Lina Davitt (Project Manager)
Felix Hekele (Research Assistant)
Katerina Manoli (Master Student, 2018/19)
Isabella Gould (Master Student, 2018/19)
Luca Marie Leisten (SoBots Intern, Summer 2019)
Hanna Seelemeyer (SoBots Intern, Summer 2019)
Martin Hoffmann (SoBots Intern, Summer 2019)
Julia Fechner (SoBots Intern, Summer 2019)
Elena Giacomazzi (SoBots Intern, Summer 2017)
Veronica Diveica (SoBots Intern, Summer 2017)
Malte Hayen (SoBots Intern, Summer 2017)
Hannah Bargel (SoBots Intern, Summer 2018)