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About

Zachary Henkel is a leading researcher in human-robot interaction (HRI), with a focus on socially assistive robotics, child-robot interaction, and the ethical deployment of robots in sensitive contexts. His most cited work, “Using robots to interview children about bullying” (52 citations), demonstrates that children may disclose sensitive information more readily to a robot than to a human interviewer, opening new avenues for forensic and therapeutic applications. Henkel also pioneered proxemic scaling functions for social robots (29 citations), enabling robots to autonomously adjust their behavior based on human proximity—a foundational contribution to natural human-robot collaboration. His research extends to disaster response, where he examined how robots can interact with trapped victims (17 citations), and to digital health, conceptualizing socially-assistive robots as therapeutic tools (16 citations). Henkel’s work on user expectations of privacy in robot-assisted therapy (12 citations) and the development of Therabot, an adaptive therapeutic support robot (10 citations), underscores his commitment to ethical, user-centered design. With over 180 total citations, Henkel’s research bridges engineering, psychology, and ethics, shaping how robots can safely and effectively support vulnerable populations.