You should know about:
Accessibility, Disability, and Robotics

Elaine Schaertl Short is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University. She holds a PhD and MS in Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC) and a BS in Computer Science from Yale University. Her research applies human-centered design and disability community values to the development, deployment, and evaluation of AI and machine learning for robotics, including: human-centered human-in-the-loop machine learning; disability-friendly assistive robotics; autonomous HRI in groups, public spaces, and other human-human contexts; and accessibility and disability inclusion in robotics education and the computing research community.  Elaine is particularly passionate about disability rights in her service work.  She is a co-PI of AccessComputing and co-Chair of AccessSIGCHI, both organizations that work to increase the accessibility of the field of computing and the representation of people with disabilities in the computing field.

Tapomayukh "Tapo" Bhattacharjee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University where he directs the EmPRISE Lab (https://emprise.cs.cornell.edu/). He completed his Ph.D. in Robotics from Georgia Institute of Technology and was an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral research associate in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. His primary research interests are in the area of physical robot caregiving and physical human-robot interaction. He is the recipient of TRI Young Faculty Researcher Award'24, NSF CAREER Award'23, AFCEA 40 under 40 Award'22, and his work has won Best Systems Paper Award at HRI’26, Best Paper Award at RSS’25, Best Paper and Student Paper Award Finalist and Best HRI Paper Award Finalist at ICRA’25, Best Systems Paper Award Finalist at HRI'24, Best Demo Award at HRI'24, Best RoboCup Paper Award at IROS’22, Best Paper Award Finalist and ABB Best Student Paper Award Finalist at IROS’22, Best Technical Advances Paper Award at HRI'19, and Best Demonstration Award at NeurIPS’18. His work has also been featured in many media outlets including the BBC, Reuters, New York Times, IEEE Spectrum, and GeekWire and his robot-assisted feeding work was selected to be one of the best interactive designs of 2019 by Fast Company. 

Patricia Alves-Oliveira is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the Advisory Board at Meta. She leads the Robot Studio, a research lab dedicated to advancing human augmentation through embodied social intelligence, focusing on designing robots that understand and support human preferences, particularly in healthcare. Her work bridges human-centered robot design, embodied AI systems, and real-world evaluation, as she develops novel robotic hardware and context-agnostic algorithms, while studying how robots can integrate into everyday life in socially intelligent ways. Previously, Patricia was a Senior UX Designer at Amazon Lab126, contributing to Astro, the company's first home robot, and held a postdoctoral position at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. from the University Institute of Lisbon, with time at Cornell University. Her research has received three Best Paper Awards at ACM/IEEE HRI. She is co-founder of Talking Robotics and has been recognized as a Rising Woman Star in Social Robotics (2025), EECS Rising Star (2020), and Future DigiLeader (2020). Her work has been featured in IEEE, RoboHub, MLive, among others.

Chad Jenkins is a Professor of Robotics  at the University of Michigan.  His research addresses problems in robot learning from demonstration and human-robot interaction, primarily focused on dexterous mobile manipulation and robot perception.  Professor Jenkins is currently the RAS Vice President for Educational Activities.  

Professor Jenkins was the founding Chair of the Robotics Undergraduate Degree Program at the University of Michigan.  Professor Jenkins is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 

Dr. Naomi T. Fitter is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. Her past degrees include a B.S. and B.A. in mechanical engineering and Spanish from the University of Cincinnati and an M.S.E. and Ph.D. in robotics and mechanical engineering and applied mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania, and she completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Southern California.

As a member of the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute, Dr. Fitter aims to equip robots with the ability to engage and empower people in interactions from playful high-fives to challenging physical therapy routines. Her work focuses in particular on prospective robot roles in the early development of young children with disabilities, as well as robot assistance of older adults in a range of social, physical, and cognitive areas. She received an NSF CAREER Award on the latter topic in 2025.