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About

Safinah Ali is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, AI literacy education, and computational creativity, with a particular focus on children's learning and development. Her work addresses a fundamental challenge: how can we prepare young people to thrive in an AI-driven world while simultaneously nurturing their creative capacities? Ali's most influential contribution — her work on AI ethics curricula for middle school youth (173 citations) — established foundational frameworks for teaching AI literacy through project-based learning, demonstrating that complex sociotechnical concepts are accessible to young learners. Complementing this, her extensive body of research on social robots as creativity eliciting agents (90 citations for her landmark 2019 study) has shown that robotic peers can meaningfully reverse the well-documented creativity decline children experience upon entering formal schooling. Through projects like DoodleBot and Escape!Bot, Ali translates theoretical insights into tangible educational tools, bridging robotics, pedagogy, and creative development. Her recent work on neurodivergent children signals a growing commitment to inclusive design in child-robot interaction. With over 400 cumulative citations, Ali's scholarship is reshaping how educators, technologists, and policymakers think about AI education and the role of intelligent systems in fostering human creativity.