Join the seminars

Seminars will be held monthly, usually on the third Wednesday of the month at 3:00 pm GMT/BST. If you want to participate in the discussion via Zoom, please make sure to individually register for each seminar below.

Next Seminar

Kerstin Dautenhahn, Dr. rer. nat., IEEE Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is Full Professor and Canada Research Chair in Socially Intelligent Robotics at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. She is a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is cross-appointed with the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, as well as the Department of Systems Design Engineering, and the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at University of Waterloo. In Waterloo she directs the Social and Intelligent Robotics Laboratory. Her research areas are social robotics, human-robot interaction, assistive robotics, cognitive and developmental robotics. She has published 130 peer-reviewed journal articles (H-Index 98), and frequently gives invited keynote presentations at international conferences., e.g. at IEEE RO-MAN 2025 in the Netherlands. She has several senior Editorial Roles in international journals, e.g. the International Journal of Social Robotics, and Interaction Studies.

Future SeminarS

To be announced soon!

Past SeminarS

Robots are increasingly becoming our social companions, tutors, and conversational partners. This talk explores the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of artificial intelligence and social robotics. Drawing on recent research, I will examine how large language models and multimodal AI are pushing the boundaries of human-robot interaction, enabling robots to interpret visual context, adapt their speech, manage turn-taking, and engage in open-ended dialogue. While discussing the practical hurdles that remain, from the nuances of child speech recognition to designing robots that alleviate loneliness in vulnerable populations, the talk reflects on the cognitive, technical, and social dimensions of building interactive social machines. 

Tony Belpaeme is a Professor at Ghent University (Belgium) and Senior Researcher at imec. At Ghent he leads a team studying cognitive robotics and human-robot interaction. Starting from the premise that intelligence is rooted in social interaction, Belpaeme and his research team try to further the science and technology behind artificial intelligence and social robotics. This results in a spectrum of results, from theoretical insights to practical applications. He coordinated several large-scale European projects studying how robots can support children while learning a second language and how long-term human-robot interaction can be use in paediatric applications.

If you missed the seminar, don't worry! The recording will be released on YouTube soon.