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About

M. Skubic is a robotics and human-robot interaction researcher whose work spans spatial language processing, robot programming by demonstration, and force-based skill acquisition. Best known for the highly influential paper "Spatial Language for Human–Robot Dialogs" (2004, 221 citations), Skubic has made foundational contributions to enabling intuitive, natural communication between humans and robots — allowing non-expert users to direct robotic systems using everyday spatial descriptions and even hand-drawn maps. A significant thread of Skubic's research addresses the challenge of moving robots beyond controlled, structured environments. Through a series of studies on force-based assembly skills, Skubic developed methods for teaching robots complex contact tasks directly from human demonstration, using force sensor signals rather than detailed geometric models. Techniques including fuzzy classifiers and neural networks were applied to rapidly identify contact formations, advancing the field of programming by demonstration with real-world applicability. Skubic also contributed to linguistic spatial description generation from sonar data, further bridging perception and natural language in robotics. With a body of work accumulating hundreds of citations and addressing core challenges in robot adaptability and human-robot communication, Skubic's research has meaningfully shaped how researchers approach accessible, demonstration-driven robotics for unstructured, real-world settings.