Mariacarla Staffa

About

Mariacarla Staffa is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work spans socially assistive robotics, human-robot interaction (HRI), cognitive systems, and biologically inspired navigation. With a career trajectory that bridges neuroscience-inspired robotics and applied social AI, Staffa has made pioneering contributions to the emerging field of robotic psychometric evaluation — exploring how social robots can serve as reliable tools for assessing cognitive and personality traits in elderly populations. Her highly cited studies (2018, 2020) demonstrate that robot-administered psychometric tests can rival traditional paper-and-pencil methods, while also revealing how user personality and technology acceptance shape outcomes, accumulating over 120 combined citations. Her earlier work on biologically inspired navigation for the Psikharpax rat robot (61 citations) showcased her aptitude for modeling complex animal behavior in autonomous systems. Staffa has also advanced understanding of HRI comfort dynamics, gesture recognition, and attentional modulation in adaptive robotic architectures. Her research into recommender interfaces and prosthetic control via BCI further reflects the breadth of her expertise. Collectively, her body of work — exceeding 440 citations — positions her as a significant voice in designing robots that are not only technically capable but meaningfully integrated into human social and healthcare contexts.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   The Role of Personality Factors and Empathy in the Acceptance and Performance of a Social Robot for Psychometric Evaluations

   66 citations · 2020
2. 2
   User’s Personality and Activity Influence on HRI Comfortable Distances

   64 citations · 2017
3. 3
   A biologically inspired meta-control navigation system for the Psikharpax rat robot

   61 citations · 2012
4. 4
   Psychometric Evaluation Supported by a Social Robot: Personality Factors and Technology Acceptance

   60 citations · 2018
5. 5
   Socially Assistive Robot for Providing Recommendations: Comparing a Humanoid Robot with a Mobile Application

   57 citations · 2018
6. 6
   Recommender Interfaces: The More Human-Like, the More Humans Like

   34 citations · 2016
7. 7
   Continuous gesture recognition for flexible human-robot interaction

   28 citations · 2014
8. 8
   The role of intrinsic motivations in attention allocation and shifting

   28 citations · 2014
9. 9
   Attentional Modulation of Mutually Dependent Behaviors

   21 citations · 2010
10. 10
    A WiSARD Network Approach for a BCI-Based Robotic Prosthetic Control

    21 citations · 2019

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links