Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Stephanie Tulk’s research sits at the intersection of social robotics and cognitive science, exploring how humans perceive and interact with humanoid robots in social decision-making contexts. Her work focuses on the psychological mechanisms—particularly trust and approachability—that mediate our willingness to treat robots as social partners. In her most-cited paper, “Trust and Approachability Mediate Social Decision Making in Human-Robot Interaction” (2018, 11 citations), she demonstrated that people apply the same fairness and selfishness judgments to robots as they do to humans, fundamentally shaping how we design autonomous social agents. Tulk also pioneered the use of perspective-taking paradigms in human-robot interaction, showing in a 2015 study that taking a robot’s spatial perspective can reduce implicit biases and improve cooperative behavior in economic games. Her 2018 follow-up work further established that perceptions of a robot’s “mind” directly influence trust and economic decision-making. Though early in her career, Tulk’s findings have immediate implications for the design of approachable, trustworthy social robots in healthcare, education, and service settings. Her research challenges us to rethink the boundary between tool and companion, making her a rising voice in human-robot interaction.