Pouyan Ziafati
Papers
12
Total Citations
178
H-Index
7
About
Pouyan Ziafati is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work sits at the intersection of socially assistive robotics, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interventions, autonomous robot programming, and IoT security. His most impactful contributions focus on leveraging social robots to support children with ASD, most notably through studies using QTrobot to improve attention, reduce repetitive and stereotyped behaviors, and teach emotional and social skills — work that has collectively garnered nearly 90 citations and demonstrated measurable therapeutic benefits in clinical settings. His comparative study examining human versus robot interactions with ASD children further solidified the case for robotic interventions in therapeutic contexts. Beyond clinical applications, Ziafati has made significant contributions to the technical foundations of autonomous robotics, addressing gaps in agent programming languages and event-processing architectures for robot control. He has also tackled the growing security challenges posed by IoT-integrated social robots in healthcare and ambient assisted living environments, developing frameworks that bridge security interoperability with real-world deployment. His most recent work explores the use of large language models in robot-assisted therapeutic role-play, signaling a forward-looking engagement with AI-driven tools for neurodivergent support — an area of increasing relevance and responsibility.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 4Agent Programming Languages Requirements for Programming Autonomous Robots16 citations · 2013
- 5Event-processing in autonomous robot programming14 citations · 2013
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- 8ProCRob Architecture for Personalized Social Robotics6 citations · 2017
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