Minja Axelsson, PhD

A woman with red hair and a rainbow striped shirt stands in front of a poster at a scientific conference. The poster title is "Who Owns the Robot?: Four Ethical and Socio-technical Questions about Wellbeing Robots in the Real World through Community Engagement".

A screenshot of the presented paper on the AAAI website, showing the authors: Minja Axelsson, Jiaee Cheong, Rune Nyrup, and Hatice Gunes.

Who owns the robot? Who do we empower when we interact with a robot? Our paper at #AIES 2025 conference interrogates these questions: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI... Wonderful to meet others from the #AIethics community!

Congratulations!! Looking forward to reading it:)

Check out the other cool work being done at the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Lab where I'm completing my PhD: cambridge-afar.github.io Led by the inspiring Prof. Hatice Gunes! Shout out also to Prof. Micol Spitale who is behind much of the architecture running inside QT.

#robotics #AI

A woman with red hair and glasses (me) speaking past the camera in a room that is lit with a blue light. She is an expert being interviewed for the program. The image has the text: "Click" and her name and occupation: "Minja Axelsson - Researcher in Human Robot Interaction - Cambridge University".

A white plastic robot in a dimly lit room. It has a head, arms, and a torso visible. It has a screen face which is smiling and looking towards a person in front of it. It has a small microphone taped to its chest.

The host of the program (Spencer Kelly) talking to the white plastic robot visible in the previous picture.

The BBC Click episode featuring my PhD research is out! Thank you to @spenley.bsky.social! It was great to see Spencer doing a brief positive psychology session with QTRobot. This interactions shows how #robots could support our #wellbeing in the future.
I appreciate that the Beeb mic'ed QT up, ha!

Click - 15/03/2025 Highlights from tech expo Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including the AI in our phones. Plus, Spencer Kelly checks out the latest AI research at Cambridge University Computer Laboratory.

You can watch the full episode here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Read my short blog post about the work featured in the episode here: minjaaxelsson.com/blog/25-03-b...

Read my other research on robotic wellbeing coaches here: scholar.google.com/citations?hl...

#science #tiedetaivas

Minja Axelsson ‪University of Cambridge‬ - ‪‪Cited by 374‬‬ - ‪human-robot interaction‬ - ‪social robotics‬ - ‪design research‬ - ‪robot ethics‬ - ‪wellbeing technology‬

You can check out our work on robot appearance here: minjaaxelsson.com/publications...

And my other research on wellbeing robots here: scholar.google.com/citations?hl...

I mentioned key findings from our research, including how robots should interact, behave and look to promote our well-being. Interestingly, appearance really matters: a toy-like robot was perceived to have more friendly behaviour than a human-like robot. Even when the robots were behaving the same!

A woman with red hair and pink boots (me) receiving an award from two men. There are two more people. They are all standing on a stage and smiling.

A woman with red hair and pink boots (me) presenting on a stage with a microphone. In the background is a slide with the question: Can robots help us feel better?

It was amazing to be recognised as the winner of the 3MT Thesis Competition, on Friday at the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence Early Career Conference, at Uni of Cam!

My talk asked the question: Can robots help us feel better?

#robotics #wellbeing #HRI #HAI #science #tiedetaivas

A woman standing at a podium giving a talk to an audience, with a slide reading “Could we use some philosophical therapy?”

Inspiring talk by @shannonvallor.bsky.social at @darwincollegecam.bsky.social today about de-coding humanity, and challenging framings of code. #AIethics

Suomen lähestymistavsta disinformaation torjumiseen - etenkin vaaleihin liittyen #tiedetaivas #demokratia

Congratulations! Such a great project 🦾

Ooh what robot is this? I don’t think I’ve seen it before!

The first slide of a presentation, with the title "Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches: Design and Ethical Recommendations". The authors are Minja Axelsson, Micol Spitale, and Hatice Gunes.

Our work on design and ethical recommendations for robotic mental well-being coaches was presented by Prof. Gunes at #HRI2025, at the T-HRI invited talks session! Sad I couldn't be there in person, fingers crossed for the next HRI...

Check it out: dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

#robotethics #AIethics

A red-haired not-at-all-tired-looking woman sitting on the floor. She has a human-shaped robot and two screens in front of her.

BBC Click came to the Computer Lab today to shoot our #robots for their 1000th and final episode! How exciting to be part of Click history and to represent the lab.

Pictured: some debugging prior to QT's big moment in the limelight.

#science #sciencecommunication #tiedetaivas

Of interest - Unesco report ”I'd blush if I could: closing gender divides in digital skills through education”. Addresses how having male-dominated AI design and engineering teams results in bad and sexist designs like this. unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/p...

Finnish technology - clearly applying Jante Law 😅

Mörkö!

Hahaha I’ve liked and subscribed! 😁

Love it! Sliding into your youtuber era?

Who is a robot? A fundamental model of artificial identity YouTube video by Lux Miranda

Check out the video I made for my latest RO-MAN paper, ft. the highest production quality i've ever put into presenting a slide deck 🙈

Hei, onko tähän mahdollista osallistua videolla, tai katsoa striimi jostain? Kiitos!

I made an HRI Starter Pack!

If you are a Human-Robot Interaction or Social Robotics researcher and I missed you while scrolling through bsky's suggestions, just ping me and I'll add ya.

go.bsky.app/CsnNn3s

Thank you!!

Maybe this is a niche area, but I'm curious who else is on here! Feel free to poke me to add you!
go.bsky.app/5KCtepm

Could you add me please? 🙌

Hi, so I've spent the past almost-decade studying research uses of public social media data, like e.g. ML researchers using content from Twitter, Reddit, and Mastodon.

Anyway, buckle up this is about to be a VERY long thread with lots of thoughts and links to papers. 🧵

Donate to Legal fund for Alex Norris "oh no" comics, organized by Alex Norris I am Alex Norris, creator of the webcomic Webcomic Name. I am here to ask for he… Alex Norris needs your support for Legal fund for Alex Norris "oh no" comics

The creator of "Webcomic Name" (of "oh no" fame), Alex Norris, is asking for help for his legal fund. He is seeking to protect IP of his whole comic, which a company is claiming ownership over after an agreement to make a boardgame. www.gofundme.com/f/alexnorris...
Protecting artist IP is important.

From a science communication perspective, would love to hear your thoughts about the complexities of having science "heroes"!

Thank you again for having me! Finally found my way over here :)

Thank you Minja Axelsson for speaking with our lab today about her amazing work on robot wellbeing coaches!