Humans are at the center of robot learning. Whether providing training data, initializing environments, or tuning robots, humans are critical for effective learning. But in research we often find disconnects between how robots learn and how humans interact. From the human's perspective, users expect robots to understand their actions and robustly perform tasks --- i.e., people think robots have abilities that match our "common sense.'' From the robot's perspective, learners expect humans to provide large amounts of near-optimal data --- but these detailed, intricate instructions can be difficult or unnatural for non-experts.
Our proposed workshop will reunite HRI with robot learning by bringing together diverse experts from both perspectives. In human-robot interaction, we will cover best practices for user studies and explore how to design learners that are intuitive for everyday users. In robot learning, we will summarize cutting-edge frameworks, and assess what people should realistically expect from these systems. Finally, at the intersection of both fields, we will explore how human teachers and robot learners can mutually improve one another's performance. Our objectives include i) understanding how to combine technical learning advances with human-centered studies and ii) a position paper that documents trends, challenges, and interdisciplinary directions for future research.
8:30am Welcome
8:45am Invited Speaker 1
9:15am Invited Speaker 2
9:45am Invited Speaker 3
10:15am Coffee Break & Demo
11:00am Invited Speaker 4
11:30am Debate
12:30pm Lunch
1:45pm Invited Speaker 5
2:15pm Invited Speaker 6
2:45pm Next Gen Spotlight
3:15pm Poster Session
4:00pm Interactive Session
4:30pm Invited Speaker 7
5:00pm Invited Speaker 8
5:30pm Invited Speaker 9
We invite submissions on late-breaking research at the intersection of robot learning and human-robot interaction. Examples of relevant topics include but are not limited to:
Robot learning methods that account for how everyday humans teach and interact with robots
Human-robot interaction studies that evaluate user expectations and inform designs of robot learners
Efforts for aligning assumptions or expectations between human users and robot learners
Collaborative approaches where humans and robots teach one another
Systems and frameworks that integrate technical learning advances with human factors or user studies
Submissions should be in the form of 1-2 page extended abstracts (IEEE Format, page limit does not include reference). Contributions can be novel ongoing work, recently published work, or collaborative and/or large-scale projects. Accepted submissions will be invited to participate in the Next Gen Spotlight and Poster Presentation. These submissions will not be published, shared, or archived without the author's expressed consent.
Submission form: https://openreview.net/group?id=IEEE.org/ICRA/2026/Workshop/Learning-HRI#tab-recent-activity
We will accept submissions for Poster Presentations on a rolling basis starting: January 1st, 2026
Final submission deadline for Poster Presentations: May 15th, 2026 (23:59:59 PST)
Notification of Acceptance: Rolling
Workshop: June 1st or June 5th
If you have any questions about this workshop, please contact:
Dylan Losey <losey@vt.edu>, Shuijing Liu <shuijing.liu@utexas.edu>, and/or Xuehui Yu <yuxuehui@nus.edu.sg>