Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Carla Abdelnour is a researcher specializing in socially assistive robotics, human-robot interaction, and cognitive care technology, with a particular focus on supporting elderly individuals living with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. Her work bridges clinical needs and technological innovation, ensuring that robotic assistants are meaningfully designed around the real-world requirements of both patients and caregivers. Abdelnour's most influential contribution, "Challenges for Service Robots—Requirements of Elderly Adults with Cognitive Impairments" (2017, 83 citations), established critical user-centered requirements for assistive robots through international focus groups, laying essential groundwork for the field. She has been a key contributor to the RAMCIP project, an ambitious initiative developing home-based robotic assistants for Alzheimer's patients, with publications exploring emotional expression in robots and multimodal interaction strategies. Her 2022 framework, CARESSER, advances the field further by enabling robots to learn social assistance behaviors directly from expert therapists through demonstrations, garnering 28 citations to date. What distinguishes Abdelnour's research is her commitment to co-designing technology with domain experts and end-users alike, ensuring clinical relevance and practical deployment. Her work represents a compelling intersection of gerontology, artificial intelligence, and compassionate care design.