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About

Sowon Hahn is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction (HRI), social robotics, and trust dynamics. Her work focuses on understanding how humans form, lose, and rebuild trust with robots, as well as how social robots can be designed to foster meaningful emotional connections. Hahn's most influential contribution, "Sorry, it was my fault": Repairing Trust in Human-Robot Interactions" (2023, 49 citations), has become a landmark study in the field, demonstrating how robots can strategically employ apology and accountability to restore human trust following failures. Her complementary research on failure types further refines our understanding of when and how trust repair strategies succeed. Notably, Hahn has advanced the frontier of empathetic robotics through her SAFE framework — integrating Speech, Action, Facial expression, and Emotion as non-verbal cues powered by large language models — offering a practical blueprint for emotionally intelligent robots. Her investigations into anthropomorphism, loneliness, and head movement timing reveal a deep commitment to making robots genuinely socially capable companions. With growing citation impact across multiple 2023–2024 publications, Hahn is rapidly establishing herself as a formative voice in next-generation social robotics research.