Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches
My PhD thesis examines how robots could promote well-being. My thesis is still in press, but check out these publications in the meantime:
- Axelsson, M., Bodala, I. P., & Gunes, H. (2021, August). Participatory design of a robotic mental well-being coach. In 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (pp. 1081-1088). IEEE. [Publisher]
- Churamani, N.*, Axelsson, M.*, Caldır, A., & Gunes, H. (2022, October). Continual learning for affective robotics: A proof of concept for wellbeing. In 2022 10th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW) (pp. 1-8). IEEE. [Publisher]
- Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2023, March). Adaptive robotic mental well-being coaches. In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 733-735). [Publisher]
- Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2023, March). Robotic coaches delivering group mindfulness practice at a public cafe. In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 86-90). [Publisher]
- Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., & Gunes, H. (2023, March). Robotic mental well-being coaches for the workplace: An in-the-wild study on form. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 301-310). [Publisher]
- Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., Kara, N., & Gunes, H. (2023, August). Longitudinal Evolution of Coachees’ Behavioural Responses to Interaction Ruptures in Robotic Positive Psychology Coaching. In 2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) (pp. 315-322). IEEE. [Publisher]
- Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2024). Robots as mental well-being coaches: Design and ethical recommendations. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 13(2), 1-55. [Publisher]
- Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2024, March). “Oh, Sorry, I Think I Interrupted You”: Designing Repair Strategies for Robotic Longitudinal Well-being Coaching. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 13-22). [Publisher]
- Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., & Gunes, H. (2023). Vita: A multi-modal llm-based system for longitudinal, autonomous, and adaptive robotic mental well-being coaching. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. [Publisher]
- Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., & Gunes, H. (2024). Appropriateness of LLM-equipped Robotic Well-being Coach Language in the Workplace: A Qualitative Evaluation. 2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN), 2024, pp. 1571-1578. [Publisher]
- Axelsson, M., Churamani, N., Çaldir, A., & Gunes, H. (2025). Participant Perceptions of a Robotic Coach Conducting Positive Psychology Exercises: A Qualitative Analysis. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. [Publisher]

Interacting with the Pepper robot in my first year.