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About

Christopher C. Pagano is a researcher whose work sits at the intersection of human perception, spatial cognition, and robotics, with a particular focus on the perceptual challenges humans face when operating robotic systems. He is perhaps best known for his influential contribution to continuum robotics — specifically the development of soft, cephalopod-inspired robot manipulators, a 2005 paper that has garnered an impressive 282 citations and helped establish a new paradigm in flexible robotic design. Much of Pagano's subsequent research investigates how human operators perceive and interact with remote environments during teleoperation. His studies on robot passability, aperture judgment, and spatial perception reveal consistent perceptual limitations that arise when operators lose direct line of sight, with implications for robot design and operator selection. His work on radial outflow as a depth cue during teleoperation offers practical solutions to these challenges, while his research on haptic feedback in minimally invasive surgery extends these perceptual questions into high-stakes medical contexts. Pagano has also examined individual differences, exploring how visual-spatial abilities predict teleoperation performance — findings with real-world relevance for training and personnel selection in human-robot interaction. Across these domains, his work reflects a sustained commitment to bridging ecological perception theory with applied robotics.