Maaike Harbers

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About

Maaike Harbers explores the critical intersection of human-robot interaction, ethics, and teamwork. Her research investigates how people perceive robot autonomy, particularly how a robot’s physical appearance and the context of its use shape human expectations and trust. In her highly cited 2017 work, "Perceived Autonomy of Robots: Effects of Appearance and Context" (26 citations), she demonstrates that a robot's look—from mechanical to humanoid—directly influences how much autonomy users attribute to it, a finding vital for designing intuitive interfaces. Harbers also tackles pressing ethical questions in high-stakes domains, as seen in "Exploring the Ethical Landscape of Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue" (17 citations), where she maps the moral challenges of deploying robots in disaster response. Additionally, her work on "Context-sensitive sharedness criteria for teamwork" (2014) bridges social science and AI, proposing that effective human-agent teams require shared mental models that adapt to context. By blending empirical studies with ethical analysis, Harbers provides essential frameworks for building robots that are both understandable and responsible, making her a key voice in shaping the future of collaborative intelligent systems.