Letícia Berto (she/her) is a Ph.D. student at the University of Campinas. She is a member of the Laboratory of Robotics and Cognitive Systems (LaRoCS), the Hub for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Architectures (H.IAAC), and a guest student at the COgNTtive Architectures for Collaborative Technologies (CONTACT) Unit within the Italian Institute of Technology. Her research is grounded in developing cognition in robots, drawing inspiration from child development. Her primary focus is constructing cognitive autonomous robots by implementing cognitive architectures, emphasizing intrinsic motivation, learning, and decision-making processes. In her quest, she delves into intricate dilemmas, such as the availability of resources in the environment, social interaction dynamics, and the nuanced interplay of wanting versus liking.  

Passionate about robots since he has a memory of, Marco Gabriele Fedozzi (he/him) is currently pursuing a Ph.D. funded by the University of Genoa at the COgNTtive Architectures for Collaborative Technologies (CONTACT) Unit of the Italian Institute of Technology. From the giant robots he dreamed about designing (and piloting) as a kid, he has shifted his attention toward using (smaller) robots to peer into the human mind. To his surprise, understanding how kids learn to grasp a toy, and why they do that in the first place (!), has proven more challenging and stimulating than inverse kinematics and locomotion. May or may not still be thinking about transferring that knowledge into giant robots later on.

Dr. Ana Tanevska (they/them) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Social Robotics Lab in Uppsala University, within the Horizon Europe project SymAware. Their research is grounded in the topic of trustworthy human-robot interaction (HRI), with a particular focus on human-in-the-loop learning, and shared autonomy and agency in HRI. In addition to trustworthy HRI, Ana’s research interests include cognitive robotics (with a spotlight on the role of affect in cognition), and socially-assistive HRI.