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About

Hyewon Lee is an emerging researcher specializing in human-robot interaction, telepresence technologies, and social presence in mediated communication. Her work sits at the intersection of robotics, communication theory, and user psychology, exploring how people perceive and respond to increasingly sophisticated robotic systems. Lee's most notable contributions center on understanding how robot design influences user trust and social engagement. Her 2014 study examined how different levels of robot autonomy — autonomous versus tele-operated — shape users' willingness to follow robotic guidance, highlighting the critical importance of matching robot types to appropriate task contexts. Building on this foundation, her 2015 research investigated how telepresence robots convey the presence of remote communicators, demonstrating that these systems create uniquely rich communication experiences through combined visual, auditory, and tactile channels. A particularly creative line of inquiry explores how anthropomorphic sound interfaces — whether a robot speaks or uses non-speech feedback — affect users' sense of copresence and social connection. This work reveals how subtle design choices profoundly shape human perception of robotic companions. Though still accumulating citations, Lee's research addresses timely and consequential questions about robot-mediated communication that will only grow more relevant as telepresence technologies become mainstream in education, healthcare, and remote collaboration.