Adriana Tapus

About

Adriana Tapus is a pioneering researcher in socially assistive robotics and human-robot interaction, whose work has fundamentally shaped how robots are designed to support human health, rehabilitation, and well-being. Best known for co-defining the field of socially assistive robotics — a term whose foundational 2007 paper has accumulated over 535 citations — Tapus has dedicated her career to building robots that go beyond physical assistance to provide meaningful social and cognitive engagement. Her most influential contributions span several high-impact domains: developing personality-adaptive robots for post-stroke rehabilitation (401 citations), designing imitative robots to improve social engagement in children with autism (264 citations), and creating intelligent cognitive therapies for people with dementia (207 citations). Her work on user profiling and behavioral adaptation has further cemented her reputation as a leader in personalizing robot behavior to individual users' psychological and emotional profiles. Tapus's research consistently bridges cutting-edge artificial intelligence, behavioral science, and clinical application, exemplified by projects like ENRICHME, which deploys assistive robots in elderly home environments. With a body of work spanning over a decade and thousands of cumulative citations, she remains one of the most influential voices shaping the future of human-centered robotics.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Socially assistive robotics [Grand Challenges of Robotics]

   535 citations · 2007
2. 2
   User—robot personality matching and assistive robot behavior adaptation for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy

   401 citations · 2008
3. 3
   Children with autism social engagement in interaction with Nao, an imitative robot

   264 citations · 2012
4. 4
   The Grand Challenges in Socially Assistive Robotics

   214 citations · 2007
5. 5
   Children with Autism Social Engagement in Interaction with Nao, an Imitative Robot - A Series of Single Case Experiments

   211 citations · 2012
6. 6
   The use of socially assistive robots in the design of intelligent cognitive therapies for people with dementia

   207 citations · 2009
7. 7
   User profiling and behavioral adaptation for HRI: A survey

   169 citations · 2017
8. 8
   Look Like Me

   152 citations · 2015
9. 9
   ENRICHME: Perception and Interaction of an Assistive Robot for the Elderly at Home

   121 citations · 2020
10. 10
    A model for synthesizing a combined verbal and nonverbal behavior based on personality traits in human-robot interaction

    113 citations · 2013

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links