Papers
14
Total Citations
180
H-Index
8
About
Elena Kokkoni is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of pediatric rehabilitation, soft robotics, and human-robot interaction, whose work is transforming how we approach early childhood motor development. Her most celebrated contribution, the Grounded Early Adaptive Rehabilitation (GEAR) system, has garnered 40 citations and represents a landmark effort to create smart, naturalistic environments that simultaneously advance motor, cognitive, and social development in infants. Kokkoni has been instrumental in developing actuated wearable robotic devices for pediatric populations — a critically underserved area — including soft robotic exosuits and the Pediatric-Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (P-WREX), which demonstrated promising results even in an 8-month-old infant with arthrogryposis. Her interdisciplinary vision extends into machine learning, where she has developed infant-specific action recognition systems like BabyNet and novel approaches to learning human-robot interaction models from small datasets. Her work on closed-loop control systems and robust actuator controllers ensures these devices are not only innovative but clinically viable. With over 169 cumulative citations, Kokkoni's research offers a compelling roadmap for empowering vulnerable pediatric populations through intelligent, compassionate technology.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1GEARing smart environments for pediatric motor rehabilitation40 citations · 2020
- 2Development of a Soft Robotic Wearable Device to Assist Infant Reaching31 citations · 2020
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- 4Learning models of human-robot interaction from small data14 citations · 2017
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- 7A Detection-based Approach to Multiview Action Classification in Infants11 citations · 2021
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