Our Research

Fostering Human-Robot Rapport

We explore how robots can exhibit social skills, like building rapport, that can facilitate positive long-term human-robot interactions.

Robots as Social Agents

We examine how factors such as robot personality, customizability, and autonomy can influence human-robot interactions.

Interaction-Shaping Robotics


We study how robots can shape human-to-human interactions in groups to improve group outcomes such as trust and inclusion.

Recent News

May 8, 2025

Visit from Jodi Forlizzi

We hosted a visit from Jodi Forlizzi, Herbert A. Simon Professor in Computer Science and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Jodi's visit included a talk on "The Role of Design in Purposeful and Pragmatic AI" as well as discussions with our lab members about our ongoing projects. We are grateful for her time and insights!

2025 Jodi Forlizzi Visit

Apr 4, 2025

HRI Lab Participation at Museum of Science and Industry Robot Block Party

UChicago's HRI lab participated in the Museum of Science and Industry's annual Robot Block Party this past weekend, where we were able to showcase our robots and talk about human-robot interaction research with the Chicago community. It was fantastic to participate in such a fantastic event with other amazing roboticists in the Chicago area! During the event, our lab members and robots were also featured on local Chicago TV station Fox 32.

2025 MSI Robot Block Party

Mar 6, 2025

Mar 6, 2025

Four Papers Presented at HRI 2025

Our group presented four papers at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI 2025):