I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Information Technology of Uppsala University where I am part of the Uppsala Social Robotics Lab directed by Dr. Ginevra Castellano. My background is multidisciplinary. I received a professional degree in Design from the Academy of the Arts and New Technologies (Rome, Italy) in 2007; a BA in Literature and Linguistics from the University of Roma Tre (Rome, Italy) in 2011, a MSc in Cognitive Science from the University of Siena (Siena, Italy) in 2013, and an Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Interactive and Cognitive Environments (ICE) – with a specialization in Assistive Technologies – from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC; Barcelona, Spain) and Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e; Eindhoven, Netherlands) in 2018.
My doctoral project – ENGAGE-DEM: A Model of Engagement of People with Dementia – was aimed at building a model of engagement of people with dementia during interactions with social robots by means of nonverbal behavior and psychophysiology (e.g., electrodermal activity). As a highlight of my PhD, during the conference RO-MAN 2017, I was awarded the Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award by the Robotic Society of Japan (RSJ) and the Korean Robotic Society (KROS).
My postdoctoral fellowship is part of the COIN project, “Co-adaptive human-robot interactive systems”, a project funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). Whithin this project, I am constructing and testing novel paradigms and models of human-robot co-adaptation to apply to educational settings. As a postdoc, I am also co-supervising the doctoral project of Natalia Calvo-Barajas, which focuses on modeling trust in human-robot interaction. Moreover, I am actively collaborating in studies regarding users’ perceptions of social robots and facial mimicry of emotions displayed by social robots.
Together with Prof. Robin Strand (head of VI2 division), Prof. Åsa Cajander (deputy head of division), and Dr. Ginevra Castellano, I am also co-organizing a series of events within our division to promote wellbeing in the work environment, which are funded through the WONDER project (you can find more about the project at this link).