The challenge (not) to go wild! Challenges and best practices to study HRI in natural interaction settings

Organizers

Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten is a postdoctoral research associate at the department Social Psychology: Media and Communication at University of Duisburg-Essen. She holds a PhD in Science and a Master’s degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Studies both from University of Duisburg-Essen. She was a doctoral fellow of the German National Academic Foundation. Astrid has taught undergraduate courses in media psychology and HRI. She was and is involved in research projects funded by the European Research Council and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research on Human-Agent/Robot-Interaction with a special focus on long-term Human-Technology Interaction in natural settings and users with special needs. Astrid has published in Journals such as International Journal of Social Robotics, Computers in Human Behavior, Applied Artificial Intelligence, or Interacting with Computers and conferences such as IVA, HRI, ICMI, Ro-Man and ICSR. Since 2009 she is a member of the organizing and program committee of the spring school Interdisciplinary College in Günne. She was involved in the organization of two conferences (Media Psychology 2009; Mensch und Computer 2010) and co-chaired the HRI Pioneers Workshop 2013.
Contact: a.rosenthalvdpuetten@uni-due.de

Astrid Weiss is a postdoctoral research fellow in HRI at the Vision4Robotics group at the ACIN Institute of Automation and Control at Vienna University of Technology (Austria). She holds a master degree in sociology and a PhD in social sciences from the University of Salzburg. Her current research focuses on user-centered design and evaluation studies for Human-Robot Interaction, with a special interest in the impact technology has on the everyday life and what makes people accept or reject technology. She co-organized workshops on a variety of HRI-related topics at the following conferences: RO-MAN2008, HRI2009, HRI2011, ICSR2013, and HRI2014. She was in the Program Committee of the past three “New Frontiers in Human‐Robot Interaction” symposia. Moreover, she is regularly member of Program and Organizing Committees related to HRI research.
Contact: astrid.weiss@tuwien.ac.at

Selma Sabanovic is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington’s School of Informatics and Computing and the Cognitive Science Program. She is Director of the R-House Human-Robot Interaction Lab at IU and has been teaching a senior split-level undergraduate/graduate HRI class every year since 2010. Her work combines the social studies of computing, focusing particularly on the design, use, and consequences of socially interactive and assistive robots in different social and cultural contexts, with research on human-robot interaction (HRI) and social robot design. She has published in conferences such as HRI, RO-MAN, and ICSR and journals such as International Journal of Social Robotics, Autonomous Robots, and the Journal of HRI. Selma has also participated in the organizing and program committees of HRI, RO-MAN, and ICSR. She organized workshops at HRI 2015 conference and the AAAI 2007 symposium, the CR-HRI workshop 2012, and the HCR-2011 workshop. During Summer 2014, Selma was a Visiting Professor at Bielefeld University’s Cognitive Interaction Technology Center of Excellence (CITEC). In 2008/2009, she was a lecturer in Stanford University's Program in Science, Technology and Society. She was a visiting scholar at the Intelligent Systems Institute in AIST, Tsukuba, Japan and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. Selma received her PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007.
Contact: selmas@indiana.edu

Nicole Mirnig s working as a PhD Research Fellow at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction. She holds a Master’s Degree (2011) in Communication Studies from the University of Salzburg, Austria. She was engaged in the EU-project IURO (Interactive Urban Robot), focusing on improving human-robot interaction by the means of adequate feedback strategies. In 2013/2014, she spent nine months as a visiting researcher at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore, deepening her research in robot feedback. Nicole’s research focus lies in communication strategies for human-robot cooperation, taking into account different feedback modalities. Amongst others, she investigates how the internal state of a machine can be communicated to users.
Contact: nicole.mirnig@sbg.ac.at