Hyunjin Ku

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Hyunjin Ku is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction (HRI), with a focused expertise in designing robots for child-robot interaction and mitigating robot abuse. Her major contributions center on the development of "Shelly," a tortoise-like robot engineered to assess and restrain children's abusive behaviors toward robots. Ku's work addresses a critical gap in HRI: ensuring safe, ethical, and sustainable interactions between children and autonomous systems. Her 2018 paper on Shelly's design, which proposes a multi-modal interface and evaluates the robot's behavior-modifying capabilities, has garnered 25 citations, reflecting its influence in child-robot interaction studies. A related paper on one-to-many interaction with children, also from 2018, has 9 citations, highlighting her work's role in scaling robot interactions for group settings. Ku's research is notable for its practical, user-centered approach—combining friendly, animal-like aesthetics with touch-based interfaces to encourage spontaneous engagement while preventing harm. Her achievements include advancing the understanding of how robots can dynamically respond to and correct negative behaviors, a foundational step toward deploying robots in schools, therapy, and amusement environments. For students and researchers, Ku's work offers a compelling model of how empathy-driven design can foster positive, long-term human-robot relationships.