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Alessandra Sciutti

Tenure Track Researcher, head of the CONTACT Unit
Senior Researcher Tenure Track - Principal Investigator
COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Phone
+39 010 2897 327
Address
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia – Center for Human Technologies Via Enrico Melen 83, Building B 16152 Genova, Italy
Research center
CHT@Erzelli
About

Alessandra Sciutti is a Tenure Track Researcher and head of the CONTACT (COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies) Unit of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Bioengineering and her Ph.D. in Humanoid Technologies from the University of Genova in 2010. After two research periods in the USA and Japan, in 2018, she was awarded the ERC Starting Grant wHiSPER (www.whisperproject.eu), focused on the investigation of joint perception between humans and robots. She has published more than 100 papers and abstracts in international journals and conferences, coordinates the ERC POC Project ARIEL (Assessing Children Manipulation and Exploration Skills), and has participated in the coordination of the CODEFROR European IRSES project (https://www.codefror.eu/).  She is currently Chief Editor of the HRI Section of Frontiers in Robotics and AI and Associate Editor for several journals, including the International Journal of Social Robotics, the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, and Cognitive System Research. She is an ELLIS scholar and the corresponding co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics. Her research aims to investigate the sensory and motor mechanisms underlying mutual understanding in human-human and human-robot interaction. For more details on her research and the full list of publications, please check the Contact Unit website or her Google Scholar profile.

Education

Title: Master's Degree in Neuroengineering
Institute: University of Genoa
Location: Genoa
Country: Italy
From: 2004 To: 2006

Title: Bachelor's Degree in Bioengineering
Institute: University of Genoa
Location: Genoa
Country: Italy
From: 2001 To: 2004

Title: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Humanoid Technologies
Institute: University of Genoa - IIT
Location: Genoa
Country: Italy
From: 2007 To: 2010

Title: Master
Institute: ISICT - Institute of advanced studies in information and communication technologies
Location: Genoa
Country: Italy
From: 2004 To: 2006

Experience External

Title: Assistant Professor
Institute: University of Genoa
Location: Genoa
Country: Italy
From: 2018 To: 2018

Title: Visiting Researcher
Institute: Osaka University
Location: Osaka
Country: Japan
From: 2014 To: 2015

Title: Visiting Researcher
Institute: Rehabilitation Insitute of Chicago
Location: Chicago, IL
Country: USA
From: 2011 To: 2012

All Publications
2025
Beckova I., Pocos S., Belgiovine G., Matarese M., Eldardeer O., Sciutti A., Mazzola C.
A multi-modal explainability approach for human-aware robots in multi-party conversation
Computer Vision and Image Understanding, vol. 253
DOI 10.1016/j.cviu.2025.104304
Article Journal
2025
Incao S., Mazzola C., Belgiovine G., Sciutti A.
A Roadmap for Embodied and Social Grounding in LLMs
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, vol. 397, pp. 43-52
DOI 10.3233/FAIA241488
Conference Paper Book Series
2025
Garello L., Belgiovine G., Russo G., Rea F., Sciutti A.
Building Knowledge from Interactions: An LLM-Based Architecture for Adaptive Tutoring and Social Reasoning
arXiv
DOI 10.48550/arXiv.2504.01588
Article E-print Archive
2025
Bruzzo D., Matarese M., Sciutti A., Rea F.
Charm or Harm? How Social Robotic Tutors Influence People’s Learning with Correct and Incorrect Guidance
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 15561 LNAI, pp. 475-487
DOI 10.1007/978-981-96-3522-1_40
Conference Paper Book Series
2025
Andrighetto L., Sacino A., Cocchella F., Rea F., Sciutti A.
Cognitive Processing of Humanoid Robot Faces: Empirical Evidence and Factors Influencing Anthropomorphism
International Journal of Social Robotics
DOI 10.1007/s12369-024-01199-x
Article Journal
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Dissemination
2024
Belgiovine G., Cocchella F., Garello L., Lastrico L., Mongile S., Pasquali D., Rea F., Sciutti A.
A Curious Head: Demos to showcase Research Activities of the Lab
SHARPER Night: Notte Europea dei Ricercatori
Public Event
2024
Belgiovine G., Cocchella F., Garello L., Lastrico L., Mongile M., Rea F., Sciutti A.
A Curious Head: Demos to showcase Research Activities of the Lab
SHARPER Night: Notte Europea dei Ricercatori
Public Event
2024
Sciutti A.
Da Bella Baxter a ChatGPT:i Robot, l’Umano e il Nostro Futuro
Interview and debate with Rick Du Fer on his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81N4N5OKs08
Media
2024
Sciutti A.
Intervento su ricerca in robotica
“SHE-STEM ” Evento organizzato dall'Ufficio Scolastico Regionale per il Piemonte, Virtuale,16 February 2024
Outreach
2024
Sciutti A.
Interview on cognitive robotics and iCub
National TV show “Lo Specchio dei Tempi” on RaiNews24, 30 September 2024
Media
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Scientific Talks
2024
Sciutti A.
Cognitive Robotics for Effective Human Robot Interaction
EASE Symposium on Knowledge Representation for Interaction-engaging Robots 2024, Univeristy of Bremen, 26 March 2024, Bremen, Germany
Workshop/Symposium
2024
Sciutti A.
Cognitive Robotics for Enhanced Human-Technology Interaction
Beijing Forum - Embodied Intelligence, Nov 3rd, Beijing
Conference
2024
Sciutti A.
Cognitive Robots and Human-Aware Technologies
Bielefeld University - CITEC Lecture Series
Institute
2024
Cocchella F., Pecini C., Rea F., Sciutti A., Andrighetto L.
DOGS DAYS ARE OVER? How pets and robots anthropomorphism are shaped by social exclusion
XVIII Congresso AIP Sezione Psicologia Sociale
Conference
2024
Sciutti A.
Failures and Trust in Human-Robot Interaction
Workshop on Robot Execution Failures and Failure Management Strategies at RSS 2024, Delft, The Netherlands, 15th July 2024
Workshop/Symposium
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Oral presentations
2019
Sciutti A., Tinelli F., Gori M.
Context Dependency in Space Perception in Children with Movement Disorder
Child Vision Research Society (CVRS) 2019
Conference
2019
Sciutti A., Sandini G.
The role of object motion in visuo-haptic exploration during development
2019 Joint IEEE 9th International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics, ICDL-EpiRob 2019, pp. 123-128
Conference
2019
Nicora E., Noceti N., Sciutti A., Rea F.
Why High-performance computing is important in robotics?
BMVA technical meeting: Computer Vision + High performance Computing
Conference
2018
Sciutti A.
Bi-directional intuitive communication in HRI
Neuroscience 4 HRI workshop in conjunction with HRI 2018 (5 March)
Conference
2018
Sciutti A., Melchiori C., Lombardi G., Sandini G.
The development of visuo-haptic exploration strategies in school-aged children
European Conference on Visual Perception
Conference
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Awards and Achievements
2025
Antonj M., Memeo M., Pasquali D., Sciutti A.
HTE Hackaton winner - myCube project
2024
Pusceddu G., Sangineto M., Cocchella F., Bogliolo M., Belgiovine G., Lastrico L., Casadio M., Rea F., Gena C., Sciutti A.
Best Paper Award Nominee: Exploring Children's Strategies in Response to Robot's Advice during a Group Task with iCub and Nao
2024
Sciutti A.
Member of the Jury
2024
Sciutti A.
Member of the Jury
2024
Sciutti A.
Member of the Jury
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Editorships
2024
Sciutti A.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI - Human-robot Interaction
2024-2024
Sciutti A.
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
2024-2024
Sciutti A.
Latin American Summer School on Cognitive Robotics
2023-2023
Sciutti A.
2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics
2023-2023
Sciutti A.
5a conferenza di Robotica e Macchine Intelligenti
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Organized Events
2024
Staffa M., Sciutti A., Rossi S.
8th Workshop on Behavior Adaptation, Interaction and Learning for Assistive Robotics (BAILAR)
2024
Gena C., De Carolis B., Lieto A., Rossi S., Sciutti A.
International Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots (cAESAR)
2023
Staffa M., Rossi S., Sciutti A., Winkle K.
7th Workshop on Behavior Adaptation, Interaction and Learning for Assistive Robotics (BAILAR)
2023
Lieto A., Sciutti A., Syrbe J.
9th workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition
2023
De Carolis B., Gena C., Lieto A., Rossi S., Sciutti A.
Fourth International Workshop on Adapted intEraction with SociAl Robots (cAESAR)
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Colleagues of COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Lorenzo Morocutti PhD Student COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Laura Triglia PhD Student COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Serena Carlesso PhD Student COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Sara Mongile Post Doc - Fellow COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Marco Matarese Post Doc COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
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