Healthcare Robotics

My Research

At the Healthcare Robotics Lab, I work with Dr. Laurel Riek to create cognitively assistive robots for people with mild cognitive impairment (PwMCI), robots in the emergency department, and robots for cancer pain assessment. I am also spearheading a project in gamifying the daily routines of PwMCI to help reach goals in a real-world context. At the Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Lab, I have worked with Dr. Angelique Taylor to design robots of the future that assist healthcare workers with their cognitive/physical load, teamwork, and task management. At the Smart Sensing for Humans Lab, I have worked with Dr. Mayank Goel to design biosignal-based companion robots for children with autism to support their communication.

Cruz-Sandoval, D., Guan, C., Kubota, A., Kim, S., Twamley, E., and Riek, L.D. (2024). "Robot Characters: Co-designing Dynamic Personalities for Cognitively Assistive Robots." ACM/IEEE Transactions on Human Robot Interaction (THRI). (Submitted.).
Kubota, A., Cruz-Sandoval, D., Pei, R., Sun, E., Kim, S., and Riek, L.D. (2023). "Get SMART: Collaborative Goal Setting with Cognitively Assistive Robots." In Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM/IEEE Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI). [Acceptance rate: 25%] [PDF]
Kubota, A., Cruz-Sandoval, D., Kim, S., Twamley, E., and Riek, L.D. (2022). "Cognitively Assistive Robots at Home: HRI Design Patterns for Translational Science." In Proceedings of the 17th Annual ACM/IEEE Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI). [Acceptance rate: 24.8%] [PDF] [Best Design Paper Award Honorable Mention]
Taylor, A., Murakami, M., Kim, S., Chu, R., and Riek, L.D. “Hospitals of the Future, Designing Interactive Systems for Frontline Workers.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 2022. [Acceptance Rate: <30%] [PDF][Design Catalog]
Kubota, A., Pourebadi, M., Banh, S., Kim, S., and Riek, L. D. "Somebody That I Used to Know: The Risks of Personalizing Robots for Dementia Care." In Proceedings of We Robot, 2021. [Acceptance Rate: 15%] [PDF]
Jayaraman, S., Kim, S., Satyadharma, S., Taylor, A., Coyne, C., and Riek, L.D. “Robots for Compassion: Cancer Pain Assessment in the Emergency Departments.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 2024 (Submitted.).
Kim, S., Kubota, A., Cruz-Sandoval, D., and Riek, L. D. (2025). "Gamifying Daily Routine for People with Mild Cognitive Impairment's Self-Empowerment." (In Prep.).