My PhD research investigates how robots could be ethically designed and deployed to be accessible tools to promote users’ mental well-being.

I lead design workshops for social robots with companies and academics. These workshops teach teams how to (ethically) co-design of social robots, and how to use the Social Robot Co-Design Canvases.

The Social Robot Co-Design Canvases (available as Open Source) are a framework and tool, which enable multidisciplinary tools to design robots together with users. The tool is applicalbe in industry and academia. It enables critical examination of the purpose of the robot, as well as its ethics, form, behaviour, environment, etc.

For my master’s thesis, I led the co-design and user research of a robotic tutor of assistive sign language for autistic children. Assistive sign language is an alternative communication form used by and with autistic people. Robots could help engage autistic children in sign language tutoring. This thesis examined the (ethical) co-design of such robots, and performed a pilot study. Children were found to sign accurately (at least once) with the robot, and a non-significant preference was found for the robot to use both verbal and image-based communication when explaining a signed concept.