I am a Social Roboticist with expertise in Communication Science at the department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. My research centers on elucidating human perceptions of erroneous robots to develop interactive strategies to equip robots with coping mechanisms for such scenarios, with applications to collaborative environments, hospitality, and (child) healthcare. 

My research is driven by a fundamental curiosity regarding human behavior and cognition. Previous investigations have demonstrated that heightened anthropomorphic attributions to robots correlate positively with long-term acceptance. Looking forward, the progressive integration of robots into societal frameworks underscores the imperative to comprehensively understand people’s affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses to robots, with a view to optimizing human-robot collaborations.

Before starting at Utrecht University, I was a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Department of Communication Science at University of Twente (2015-2016) and later Brown University’s Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative (2017-2018). I have a Bachelor of Business Administration in Communication Management (2005), a Master of Science in Media Communication (2011), and a PhD in Communication Science and Human-Robot Interaction (2015).