Sofia Gadea-Omelchenko

Papers

Total Citations

176

H-Index

About

Dr. Sofia Gadea-Omelchenko is a leading scholar in human-robot interaction (HRI), with a primary focus on the dynamics of trust in autonomous systems. Her groundbreaking work challenges traditional models of human-autonomy trust, which were largely developed for static, industrial plant environments. Her most cited paper, "Effects of changing reliability on trust of robot systems" (176 citations), fundamentally shifted the field by demonstrating that trust in robots operating in dynamic, unstructured environments is not a static variable but a fluid, context-dependent response. This research introduced novel measurement and modeling methods tailored for the open-world settings where modern robots—from service bots to field robots—actually operate. Dr. Gadea-Omelchenko’s contributions have been instrumental in establishing trust calibration as a core design principle for safe and effective HRI, influencing how engineers build adaptive robot behaviors. Her work is widely cited in robotics, cognitive science, and human factors engineering, and she is recognized for bridging the gap between controlled lab studies and real-world deployment challenges.