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About

Kory Kraft is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the critical intersection of human-robot interaction and public health, focusing on deploying robotic systems to combat infectious diseases. His major contributions center on demonstrating how teleoperated robots can safely deliver medical care during outbreaks, reducing healthcare workers' exposure to dangerous pathogens. In his most-cited work, "Seeing is comforting: Effects of teleoperator visibility in robot-mediated health care" (2016, 27 citations), Kraft investigated how a robot's visible teleoperator affects patient comfort—a key insight for designing acceptable clinical robots. His complementary paper, "Robots against infectious diseases" (7 citations), compellingly argues that robots offer unique advantages: they cannot contract diseases, are agnostic to specific pathogens, and do not contribute to antimicrobial resistance. Kraft also pioneered real-time contamination modeling for robotic healthcare support (6 citations), developing the first end-to-end system that allows medical teams to map contaminated areas dynamically. Through this body of work, Kraft has established foundational knowledge for deploying robots as safe, effective tools in infection control, making him a notable voice in the growing field of robotics for pandemic response and healthcare resilience.