Members of Case Western Reserve University’s SaPHaRI Lab recently had the opportunity to present their research internationally. Three workshop papers were accepted to a workshop at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): AstroPsych: A Multimodal AI-Driven Framework for Real-Time Mental Health Support in Communication-Limited Environments by Austin Wilson and Alexis E. Block, RoboSOAR: Robotic System for Optimized Adaptive inteRaction by Andrew Chen*, Ashraf Ibraheem* (*indicates the two authors contributed equally), Ben Richardson (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems), and Alexis E. Block, and Participatory Co-Design of Affect-Sensing Wearables for Emotional Expression and Social Interaction Support by Noah Medrano, Alice Liu, Ankur Mehta (UCLA), and Alexis E. Block. SaPHaRI Lab Director Block and undergraduate student Medrano traveled to Melbourne, Australia, to present their research, while M.S. student Wilson, B.S./M.S. student Chen, and B.S. students Ibraheem and Liu gave their presentations virtually. For most of the students, it was their first accepted paper.
“For such a young lab, I’m incredibly proud that we had such a significant presence at the leading conference in our field this year,” said Block. Liu, interested in the intersections of humans, cognition, and technology, shared her mentor’s pride and described contributing to the workshop paper as among her proudest STEM accomplishments so far. Chen enjoyed researching different types of machine learning and artificial intelligence while working on his paper, reviewing “state of the art” literature, and laying out an overview for the “in-the-wild user study” that will be conducted later in the project.
Whether in-person or virtually, Block’s students actively participated in mentoring sessions with leading HRI experts and discussed their research in depth. Their active involvement in the research process and eagerness to learn and improve their work were evident to the mentors. Block noted that the mentors were “highly impressed” with her students’ work and provided helpful suggestions to strengthen their contributions further.
Liu described the feedback she received on her first paper as “important and insightful,” while Chen appreciated his mentors’ varied perspectives and design modification suggestions. “It was interesting to hear other researchers’ opinions on our project and to see how mentors’ different backgrounds in HRI shape their interpretations and evaluations of a research project,” he said. Ibraheem added, “I left the conference with insights that emerged from our mentors’ diverse experiences and backgrounds. These discussions broadened my understanding of a range of topics and helped me solidify a meaningful direction for my ongoing research.” Wilson appreciated that his session “raised new considerations [he] hadn’t previously considered,” ultimately expanding his perspective and helping him refine his approach moving forward.
SaPHaRI lab members made a strong impact at the conference through their research presentations and by enriching the experience for others. Medrano served as a student volunteer throughout the entire conference and was instrumental to the event’s success. While Block served as a mentor for the “Workshop Your Study Design” and “HRI Pioneers” workshop sessions, the latter of which she participated in (2018) and later chaired (2019). She also played a key role as a jury member for the Best Demonstration Award.
