Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Roya Salek Shahrezaie investigates the intersection of human-robot interaction (HRI), social robotics, and socially-aware navigation, focusing on how robots perceive and respond to human social dynamics. Her major contributions include pioneering work on emotional responses to robot mistreatment, where her 2019 study (29 citations) revealed that humans exhibit emotional capability and perceived mistreatment toward robots and computers, challenging assumptions about machine empathy. She has advanced socially-aware navigation for public spaces (2022, 10 citations) by integrating contextual reasoning to enable robots to navigate dynamically while respecting social norms. Her 2021 work (9 citations) introduces deep reasoning on social rules, using object and scene information to query applicable navigation behaviors. Additionally, her study on status homophily in HRI (2021, 3 citations) explores how social hierarchies influence human-robot interactions. With a growing citation impact, Shahrezaie’s research bridges technical navigation algorithms with psychological insights, offering foundational frameworks for designing robots that operate harmoniously in human-centered environments. Her work is particularly notable for its interdisciplinary approach, merging computer science, cognitive science, and social psychology to create more intuitive and accepted robotic systems.