Mahesh S. Unnithan

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Dr. Mahesh S. Unnithan is a pioneering researcher in social robotics and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on culturally contextualized child-robot engagement in India. His most cited work, "Exploring Child-Robot Interaction in Individual and Group Settings in India" (2024), demonstrates his innovative approach to using the HaKsh-E social robot for game-based hand hygiene education among children aged 7–11. Through meticulous video analysis and rubric-based assessment, Dr. Unnithan has made significant contributions to understanding how interaction dynamics shift between individual and group settings—a critical insight for deploying educational robots in diverse classroom environments. His research bridges robotics, education, and public health, offering scalable solutions for behavioral change in low-resource settings. With 2 citations to date, his work is gaining traction as a foundational study in cross-cultural child-robot interaction. Dr. Unnithan’s achievements include advancing the design of socially assistive robots tailored to Indian contexts, and his findings inform both robot design principles and pedagogical strategies for hygiene promotion. His research is essential reading for scholars interested in inclusive, context-aware robotics and the ethical deployment of AI in education.