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About

Katherine Harrison is a leading voice in the emerging field of Feminist Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), where she critically examines the ethical and social dimensions of our relationships with robots. Her most influential work, "Feminist Human-Robot Interaction" (2023, 103 citations), lays the groundwork for a more equitable and responsible approach to HRI, drawing on feminist theories from Human-Computer Interaction and Data Science. Harrison’s research interrogates how robots are designed, deployed, and perceived, particularly in care settings. She explores the problematic nature of "affective corners" in domestic robots and challenges the drive to make robots perfectly humanlike, instead advocating for the value of "imperfectly relatable" robots that embrace failure as a design feature. Her work on emotion recognition, such as in "What Does It Mean to Measure a Smile?" (2022), critically unpacks the implications of assigning numerical values to human emotions, using the case of the care robot Pepper. With a growing citation count and a reputation for interdisciplinary, thought-provoking scholarship, Harrison is shaping the future of ethical robotics, urging designers and researchers to prioritize human well-being over technical perfection.