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About

Joffrey Becker is a scholar whose work bridges robotics engineering and social anthropology, with a particular focus on human-robot interaction, anthropomorphism, and the cultural dimensions of artificial life. His early research, notably his 1986 study on human hand tendon kinematics (17 citations), laid technical groundwork for the design of dextrous, anthropomorphic robot hands, demonstrating an enduring interest in how biological systems inform machine design. Over subsequent decades, Becker's focus evolved toward the ethnographic and philosophical dimensions of robotics, exploring how engineers draw on biology, theatre, and human anatomy to construct relational machines. His 2020 French-language work on designing anthropomorphic machines (7 citations) examines the theoretical and practical frameworks roboticists deploy when building human-like interfaces, while his 2023 paper on artificial lives, analogies, and symbolic thought (5 citations) situates AI and robotics within broader anthropological inquiry. Works such as "Récursions chimériques" and "Le corps humain et ses doubles" further investigate how artificial creatures simultaneously imitate and reinvent their biological models. Together, Becker's publications offer students a rare interdisciplinary perspective, connecting hands-on engineering with rigorous cultural analysis of humanity's enduring fascination with building itself anew.