About me

I am Sheldon B. and Marianne S. Lubar Professor of Computer Science, Psychology, and Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, at Discovery Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the director of the People and Robots Laboratory. I received my PhD degree from Carnegie Mellon University‘s Human-Computer Interaction Institute in 2009.

I served as the founding chief editor of the HRI section of the journal Frontiers in Robotics & AI. If you are an HRI researcher interested in publishing in a rigorous, open-access venue, please submit! I also serve as an associated editor at Human-Computer Interaction and Foundations and Trends® in Human-Computer Interaction and the secretary-treasurer of the HCI Consortium.

I am the director of the INTEGRATE NSF Research Traineeship program, a new interdisciplinary program designed to enrich the training of graduate student on the technical and societal facets of introducing robots into work environments. UW students from any graduate program can apply and join the INTEGRATE Community!

If you are interested in joining the People and Robots Lab, please read this page.

Download my CV — Updated: August 2024

In the 2024–2025 Academic Year, I will be on sabbatical. In this period, communication may be slow, and I am unable accept requests for review or meeting requests beyond my students and collaborators. Thank you for understanding!

Research

My research in human-robot interaction (HRI) builds human-centered principles and methods to enable effective and intuitive interactions between people and robotic technologies and facilitate the successful integration of these technologies into human environments. Below are highlights from ongoing projects in the People and Robots Lab.


HRI Design Tools	Human-Robot Collaboration

Building Social Companions	Supporting Social Participation

Videos & Talks

Teaching

I teach undergraduate and graduate classes on human-computer interaction, user experience design, and research methods. Below are courses that I am currently teaching or have taught in the last year.


Building User Interfaces	Building Interactive Systems

Advising

I work with a fantastic group of advisees who come from a diverse set of background including computer science, industrial design, industrial engineering, and history who are already building their own research programs. If you are interested in working with me, please read this page.

Current Advisees

Sophie Wohltjen, Postdoctoral Researcher
Arissa Sato, Postdoctoral Researcher
Laura Stegner, CS Graduate Student
Bengisu Cagiltay, CS Graduate Student
Nathan White, CS Graduate Student
Christine Lee, CS Graduate Student
Amy Koike, CS Graduate Student
Yaxin Hu, CS Graduate Student
Dakota Sullivan, CS Graduate Student
Hailey Johnson, CS Graduate Student
Callie Kim, CS Graduate Student
Yuna Hwang, CS Graduate Student
Michael Xu, CS Graduate Student
Irene Ho, Ed Psych Graduate Student
Leo Cui, CS Graduate Student

Past Advisees

Emmanuel Senft, Postdoctoral Advisee, Idiap Research Institute
Hajin Lim, Postdoctoral Advisee, Seoul National University
Andrew Schoen, PhD Advisee, Semio
Pragathi Praveena, PhD Advisee, Carnegie Mellon University
Danny Rakita, PhD Advisee, Yale University
Mike Hagenow, Informal Advisee, MIT CSAIL
Olivia Zhao, PhD Advisee, META
David Porfirio, PhD Advisee, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Sean Andrist, PhD Advisee, Microsoft Research
Joseph Michaelis, PhD Advisee, University of Illinois Chicago
Tomislav Pejsa, PhD Advisee, Meta
Chien-Ming Huang, PhD Advisee, Johns Hopkins University
Daniel Szafir, PhD Advisee, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Allison Sauppé, PhD Advisee, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
Irene Rae, PhD Advisee, Google, Inc.
Shadeequa Miller, PhD Advisee, Visa
Kevin Welsh, MS Advisee, Los Alamos National Labs
Curt Henrichs, MS Advisee, Integrated Dynamic Electron Solutions, Inc.
Margaret Pearce, MS Advisee, Deepfield
Steven Johnson, MS Advisee, Google, Inc.
Christopher Bodden, MS Advisee, Software Engineer
Faisal Khan, MS Advisee, Argonne National Lab
Erica (Lewis) Martin, BS Advisee, Microsoft
Nathalie Cheng, BS Advisee, Exygy
Jonathan Mumm, BS Advisee, hims & hers
Zhi Tan, BS Advisee, Northeastern University