Hello, World!

I’m a research scientist, roboticist and ethical designer. I’m currently an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

I work on human-robot interaction, primarily on the ethical design of social robots. Previously, I completed my PhD at Affective Intelligence and Robotics Lab at the University of Cambridge. For my postdoctoral period, I was at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence as a Visiting Researcher, and Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Human-Inspired AI (University of Cambridge).

I enjoy writing sci-fi as M. W. Axelsson, in Finnish and English. As the previous sentence might suggest, I’m from Finland. Naturally, I enjoy saunas, forests, wild swimming, and public libraries.

Here’s me with a fuzzy robot called Dragonbot, which I had the pleasure of posing with during my PhD research visit at MIT Media Lab.

Research: Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), social robotics, design research, robot ethics, wellbeing technology. I’ve been affiliated with:

• Heriot-Watt University, the National Robotarium, and the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics CDT
• Centre for Human-Inspired AI at the University of Cambridge
• Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge
• AFAR (Affective Intelligence and Robotics Lab) at the University of Camridge
• Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab
• GAIPS Lab at the University of Lisbon
• Intelligent Robotics group at Aalto University

Check out my Google Scholar for an up-to-date list of publications.

Design: I’ve worked as a designer in industry and in research. I’ve worked on robotics projects, and other Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), such as websites and applications.

Art: I’ve worked as a Co-Founder and Artist with Ekho Collective. We created two artworks together: Laila and Ahto. I also write and publish speculative fiction, in Finnish and in English.