I am a professor of Human-Robot Interaction at the School of Engineering and Computer Science, the University of Hertfordshire. I am currently director of the Robotics Research Group but also I direct Robot House and Kaspar projects.I am the University Theme Champion in Information and Security. I coordinated and completed the Accompany and SCRIPT projects funded by the framework 7 programme of the European Community.My research is focused on human-robot interaction and is applied in the context of rehabilitation, assistive technology and more recently, over the past 7 years, takes an interest on deep learning and machine learning approaches for HRI.

I am a former member of the THINKlab, at University of Salford, UK, 2006-2008 where I held the position of Technical Director and was a member of Centre for Rehabilitation and Human Performance Research (CRHPR). Prior to that, I worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering Studies (CREST), Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, where I was involved with the i-match project, working with Prof Garth Johnson, 2003-2006. From 2000 to 2003, I worked as a Research Associate at the school of Cybernetics, the University of Reading, UK, where I worked with Prof Harwin and a pan-European team of researchers in developing the GENTLE/s robot for neurorehabilitation. Prior to these, from 1990-1999, I have been involved in different software/hardware engineering capacities, varying from hardware technician (1990) to junior programmer, senior programmer, system analyst and senior system analyst(1999).

Research interests

My research focuses on human-robot interaction, with the objective of getting robots to adapt to humans’ interaction. An adaptive robot will have many applications, for example a therapy machine which can tune to each individual’s therapy needs, in terms of assisting and resisting forces, can be a very useful tool in the gym.

My research interests divide into: rehabilitation, assistive and assessment robotics; human performance assessment using engaging interactions; robots for enhancing personal interaction; artificial intelligence; and safe human computer interaction. I have keen interest in statistics and mathematics.

I am also interested in Robot Safety and Ethics. I am working as a member of ISO TC299, working on standard development around robots and robotic devices.

Teaching specialisms

I have taught Robotics and Artificial Intelligence to first, second and third year BSc students. I am also involved in Master and BSc final year projects.