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About

Tong Sun is a leading voice at the intersection of human-robot interaction and spoken language processing. Her most influential work, the 2021 paper "Spoken language interaction with robots: Recommendations for future research" (106 citations), provides a critical roadmap for advancing how humans communicate with machines. Sun identifies the fundamental gap between rapid robotics development and our limited ability to enable natural, spoken dialogue with robots. Her major contribution lies in synthesizing the field's challenges and offering concrete recommendations for future research, bridging the divide between computational linguistics and robotics engineering. This work has become a foundational reference for researchers seeking to create more intuitive, voice-driven robotic systems. Sun's impact extends beyond citation counts; she is shaping the next generation of human-robot interfaces, where spoken language becomes a seamless, reliable tool for collaboration. Her research is essential reading for anyone working in conversational AI, social robotics, or multimodal interaction, as she charts a clear path toward robots that truly understand and respond to human speech.