Sahar Sajadieh

University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California San Diego

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Sahar Sajadieh is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, performance art, and feminist critique. Her work interrogates how robots can serve as social actors, challenging entrenched gender norms and audience expectations through interactive robotic theater. Sajadieh’s flagship project, *Come Hither to Me!*, is a feminist robot performance that deploys a female-coded robot to flirt with gallery visitors, deliberately subverting pick-up artist tropes to provoke critical reflection on gender roles. This work has garnered 4 citations and sparked dialogue on the ethics of robotic persuasion. Her subsequent papers, including “Cute or creepy, that is the question of liveness” (3 citations), push further into the philosophy of performance, questioning whether artificial agents can achieve a genuine sense of “liveness” in staged or everyday interactions. With a total of 12 citations across her most-cited works, Sajadieh’s contributions are notable for their bold interdisciplinary approach, merging robotics with theater and gender studies. Her research not only advances technical design in social robotics but also offers a provocative lens through which to examine societal norms, making her a distinctive voice in the field.