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About

Shashank Mehrotra is an emerging researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, autonomous systems, and social behavior, with a particular focus on prosocial dynamics in urban mobility contexts. His work explores how humans can be encouraged to exhibit helpful, cooperative behaviors toward robots and autonomous agents — a pressing challenge as delivery robots and e-scooters become increasingly common in city environments. Mehrotra's most influential research investigates how observational learning can shape social norms around human-robot interactions, demonstrating through online experiments that witnessing prosocial behavior can meaningfully update people's normative beliefs. His work on micromobility extends this inquiry into practical transportation settings, examining how post-ride feedback mechanisms might foster more harmonious interactions between humans and autonomous vehicles. Notably, he has employed immersive virtual environments as innovative research tools to study these behavioral dynamics in ecologically valid yet controlled settings. With citations accumulating across multiple 2024–2025 publications, Mehrotra is establishing a coherent research agenda that bridges social psychology, HRI, and sustainable urban design. His scholarship offers valuable insights for designers, policymakers, and technologists working to build cities where humans and autonomous agents coexist productively and cooperatively.