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About

Sara Ljungblad is a prominent human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction researcher whose work sits at the intersection of design methodology, social robotics, and critical technology studies. Her research explores how people engage with robots in everyday and institutional contexts — from families living with robotic toy dinosaurs in their homes (162 citations) to hospital staff navigating autonomous transport robots in clinical environments (78 citations). A recurring theme in her work is understanding the messy, complex realities of human-robot encounters rather than idealized laboratory conditions, a stance she formalized through her influential "Transfer Scenarios" design method (74 citations), which grounds innovative technology design in real human needs drawn from marginal practices. Ljungblad has also made significant contributions to educational robotics, examining how children interact with robot tutees in classroom settings and how breakdowns and repairs in these interactions shape learning experiences. Her critical perspective on the field is evident in provocative works questioning whether robotics research risks becoming a "cargo cult" of imitative rituals, and in her editorial leadership of a special issue on critical robotics research. Across her career, she has championed ethically grounded, empirically informed approaches to robot design, including careful attention to the ethical dimensions of care robotics for disabled users.