Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Joanne Yu is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of service technology, emotional psychology, and human-robot interaction (HRI). Her work fundamentally explores how emotions function when robots take on frontline service roles, particularly in hospitality. Yu’s major contributions include demonstrating that emotional contagion—the phenomenon where emotions are transmitted between people—also operates in human-robot encounters, a finding with profound implications for service design. Her landmark 2021 study on the power of emotion in HRI (260 citations) established a new framework for understanding how robot emotional expression shapes customer experience. Complementing this, her 2019 thematic analysis of online reviews (259 citations) revealed public perceptions of humanlike robots as hotel employees, providing critical insights for industry adoption. Yu has also examined nuanced nonverbal cues, such as how head tilts and smiling behaviors are perceived differently across gender and culture when exhibited by robots versus humans (116 citations). Her work, which has accumulated over 640 citations, is essential reading for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the emotional dynamics of our increasingly automated service world.