Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Nathalie Schauffel is a leading researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, trust in autonomous systems, and the sociotechnical dynamics of hybrid teams. Her work fundamentally addresses how humans build trust with robotic and autonomous systems (RAS), particularly in high-stakes industrial settings. Her most cited paper, “Building a trust ecosystem for remote inspection technologies in ship hull inspections” (2022, 12 citations), provides critical first-hand insight into the role of trust in deploying remote inspection technologies for vessel maintenance. Schauffel also introduced the novel concept of “sociodigital self-comparisons” (SDSC) in her 2022 paper (7 citations), exploring how human team members evaluate their own abilities relative to digital actors in hybrid teams—a theoretical and practical contribution that reshapes our understanding of team dynamics. Her recent work on multi-stakeholder human-robot interaction and designing hybrid user interfaces for multi-robot systems (2023–2024) demonstrates her commitment to navigating real-world complexity. By bridging engineering, psychology, and organizational theory, Schauffel’s research is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of collaborative robotics, trust calibration, and the human side of automation.