Research Projects and Students

Funded Research Projects

• The EC-funded FP7 project ALIZ-E (Adaptive Strategies for Sustainable Long-Term Social Interaction) in which I lead the thematic area Non-Verbal Interaction.
• FEELIX GROWING (FEEL, Interact, eXpress: a Global appRoach to develOpment With INterdisciplinary Grounding). Funded by the European Commission under contract FP6 IST-045169 (December 2006 - May 2010. COMPLETED). I was the project coordinator and leader of the Emotional Development thematic area.
• HUMAINE (Human-Machine Interaction Network on Emotion). Funded by the European Commission under contract FP6 IST-507422 (January 2004 - December 2007. COMPLETED). I was leader of the thematic area Emotion in Cognition and Action.
• The "New AI" Laboratory: Using Robots and Simulators to Teach Artificial Intelligence. Funded by the UH Learning and Teaching Development Fund 2002/2003 (project completed December 2003).
• FEELIX, a humanoid LEGO robot that displays different emotional expressions in response to tactile stimulation. Joint work with Jakob Fredslund, funded by the LEGO Lab at the University of Aarhus (2000-2001).

Current Research Assistants/Fellows and PhD Students

• Susan Attwood: PhD student. Topic: the dynamics of affect-based relationships in social groups.
• Aryel Beck, PhD: Bodily expression of emotions in robots (ALIZ-E Postdoctoral Research Fellow).
• David Bowes: Developmental robot controllers based on spiking neurons (co-supervised with Neil Davey and Rod Adams).
• Antoine Hiolle: The development of attachment bonds in robots (PhD student; ALIZ-E and FEELIX GROWING Research Assistant).
• Matthew Lewis, PhD: Bodily expression of emotions in robots (ALIZ-E Senior Research Fellow).
• Claire O'Bryne: PhD student. Topic: the role of emotions in action selection in dynamic environments.

Alumni

Completed PhD students

• Orlando Avila-García, PhD UH: Thesis: Towards Emotional Modulation of Action Selection in Motivated Autonomous Robots (March 2002 - February 2005). ERASMUS student from the Universidad de La Laguna, Spain, from September 2001 to February 2002.
• Arnaud Blanchard, PhD UH: Thesis: The role of affect in imitation.
• Ignasi Cos-Aguilera, PhD University of Edinburgh: Ecological Adaptation in the Context of an Actor-Critic (supervised jointly with Gillian Hayes at IPAB, University of Edinburgh).
• Robert Lowe, PhD UH: The evolution of affective expression in artificial creatures.
• Nicolas Oros, PhD UH:The development of neural controllers for robots (co-supervised with Rod Adams, Neil Davey and Volker Steuber).
• Paul Pichler, PhD UH: An Artificial Life approach to the origins of emotions by means of natural selection.

Research Fellows, Assistants, and Students

• Ivan Bethencourt Alvarez: ERASMUS student (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain), September 2002 - June 2003.
• Yossi Borenstein, PhD: FEELIX GROWING Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
• Luisa Damiano, PhD: FEELIX GROWING Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
• Etienne Desevin, PhD: HUMAINE Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Topic: Emotional modulation of motivated autonomous systems ().
• Richard French, PhD: HUMAINE Postdoctoral Research Fellow, April-September 2004.
• Marcos García Padrón: ERASMUS student (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain), January-June 2002.
• Elena Hafner: ERASMUS student (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain), September 2001 - February 2002.
• Ludovic Létolle: MSc research project (DEA interexchange with Université Paris 6, France), April-August 2004.
• Robert Marsh: HUMAINE Research Assistant, Emotion in Embodied Cogniton and Action, January 2005-August 2006.
• Oscar Martínez Valpuesta: ERASMUS student (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain), January-June 2002.
• John Murray, PhD: FEELIX GROWING Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
• Karla Parussel, PhD: HUMAINE Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Topic: Neuromodulation and emotion.
• Sarah Woods: The use of robots in education to investigate bullying behaviors (co-supervised with Kerstin Dautenhahn).

Last modified: January 30, 2012 (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

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