Patrícia Alves-Oliveira is an Assistant Professor of Robotics at the University of Michigan, where she leads Robot Studio, a research lab focused on the design, development, and evaluation of social robotics. Patricia’s background unifies the fields of Robotics, Design, and AI. She was a Senior UX Designer for Amazon Lab126 in California, a Postdoc at the University of Washington in Seattle, and has received her Ph.D. from the University Institute of Lisbon, in Portugal where she is from. Her research received Best Paper Awards at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, and her work is funded by NSF and DARPA.

Robots for Creativity Creativity is one of humanity’s defining capacities. It drives not only artistic expression, but also innovation, problem-solving, and the design of meaningful lives. Robots, by contrast, are often associated with precision, efficiency, and consistency. While these qualities make robots powerful tools, they are insufficient for enabling robots to thrive in human-centered environments. To do so, robots must engage with a fundamental aspect of human nature: our drive to create. In this keynote, I will present my research on robots for creativity. Drawing on the development of YOLO, a robot designed to foster creativity in children, I will discuss how robots can support creative thinking and expression. I will also examine the growing role of generative AI in creative work and reflect on the evolving place of robots within artistic practice. I argue that creativity should not be treated as a niche application of robotics or a secondary design consideration. Rather, embracing human creativity is essential for developing robots that are effective, adaptive, and socially accepted. As robots become increasingly integrated into everyday life, designing for creativity may prove to be one of the most important challenges (and opportunities) in the field.

Daniel Tozadore is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Robotics and AI at University College London. He previously held a postdoctoral position at EPFL and earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of São Paulo. His research focuses on social robotics, human–robot interaction, and AI for education, with over 15 years of experience in robotic systems. Daniel has led international research projects on educational and social inclusion applications of robots and is the co‑founder of an award‑winning educational technology startup using AI and affective computing.

Serge Thill is a cognitive scientist with a background in computational modelling and computational neuroscience. I lead the Foundations of Intelligent Technology (FoundIT) research group at the Donders Centre for Cognition and co-lead the "Technology for AI in Education" scientific team of the National Education Lab AI (see www.nolai.nl). He is interested in human cognition in the context of interaction with different types of intelligent technology (including robots and smart vehicles). His work thus spans a range of disciplines, from theoretical cognitive science (in particular theories of embodiment and how these relate to machine intelligence) over language and concept grounding to (neuro)-computational models of cognitive mechanisms and practical applications in, for example, autonomous vehicles, robots for therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder, or technology for education.

Laura Fiorini is a tenur track assistant professor at the University of Florence, Department of Industrial Engineering, Florence, Italy. She received the M.Sc. Degree in Biomedical Engineering at University of Pisa in 2012 (full marks, cum laude). She obtained a Ph.D. in Biorobotics (full marks, cum laude) at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, in 2016. In 2015 she visited the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at University of West England (Bristol, UK). From 2016 to 2020, she was post-doc researcher at the BioRobotics Institute and from 2020 to 2022 she was a post-doc at the University of Florence. She collaborated at different EU and national projects such as: Fit4Medical Robotics, Pharaon, Robot-Era, ACCRA, CloudIA and SI-ROBOTICS. Currently she is the coordinator of the Pharaon Italian Pilot (Pharaon Project) and scientific responsible for DESTINI project. Her research interest is mainly focused on social robotics for assisting and supporting frail people with a special focus on the design and the evaluation of the prototype in real environments. She is Associate Editor for several Scientific Journal; from 2025 she is Editor of IEEE IROS; member of the scientific committees of international conference in the field of social robotics. She is also co-founder of a spin-off company namely CoAImed that is active in the field of intelligent wearables for healthcare.