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Welcome to my Research Space

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I am a PhD student in Human Robot Interaction at the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, UK.

My research interests include Human Robot Interaction, Social Robotics, Interaction Design, AI Literacy, Multimodal Explainability

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Google Scholar

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Research Gate

RESEARCH PROJECTS

I have always believed in helping humans. I am in the pursuit of how I can improve and empower lives through power of technology and kindness of humanity.

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Multimodal Explainability in Child Robot Interaction

How robot behaviours can align to children? How can robots help tune children's expectations towards robots? What if robots can explain themselves on how they make decisions to the child? This is what I explore in healthcare and education context! To know more about my PhD research work, read my Doctoral Consortium!

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Exploring Parental Perception and AI Literacy in Educational Child Robot Interaction

Parents play an important role in child development and child perception towards technology. Are parents AI literate enough to guide their children to use technology with the right approach?  

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Interactive Wristband to promote Inclusive Learning in Classroom

Wouldn't be so cool to have a device that helps shy children speak up in class in group discussions? So that they also get a chance to participate, to speak and improve their confidence?  Do you wish you had such a wristband too, while growing up? I too wish! This research was awarded the Runners Up in Research and Design Challenge in Interaction Design and Children Conference 2024! Watch the video and read to find more about our team's work!

Whispers of Hope: Narrative game to foster Hope in Children

A fun and cute game narrated by lovely animal characters, a game that educates children on emotional growth and brings hope and finally a game that combines interactive storytelling, daily affirmations, and positive news to promote goal-directed thinking along with learning about animal conservation! All together, that's our game the 'Whispers of Hope' that constitutes of three levels to play and learn for your lil one! Children achieve milestones by saving endangered animals with each level and the end awaits for them an AR Surprise! 

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Socially Assistive Robot to help Dyslexic children learn better

Combination of different modalities and learning styles around language learning all integrated into games for young children to learn and practice with a social robot! Fun interactive learning incorporated with pedagogical methodologies grounded in special education to help children grow! Sounds cool?

Download to find out more about my Master's thesis! 

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Children Group Interaction in Indian Education Classrooms

We are a team of Indians who are mostly based abroad and we wished to do a research contribution for our country and that's how this project began! Our research is based in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Most research revolves around one child and one robot interaction, this research looks into the less explored child group interaction with a social robot, how children can effectively learn and benefit from this and so on!

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Wearable Physical Therapy robot for Hand Rehabilitation

A robotic soft glove that aids in helping post surgery patients with hand physical therapy! Using mimicking and mirroring techniques, sensors and an online interface where the patient and doctor can communicate and track progress, accessible healthcare can be made possible with innovation in the world of health x tech! Our team won the 'Best Poster Award' in Assistive Technologies! Click to find out more!

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DrawPetal: A Multisensory Flower Interface for Embodied Creativity and Emotional Expression

DrawPetal is a soft, flower-shaped interactive
prototype designed to support embodied creativity through multisensory feedback. Rather than focusing on visual accuracy or screen-based drawing and i
nspired by principles of calm technology and embodied interaction, DrawPetal offers a poetic and playful canvas for emotional self-expression, reflection, and well-being.

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Human Swarm Interaction: Impact of Swarm Robot Motion on Human Trust

How does it feel to deposit your item in a robot cloakroom? Would you trust the swarm robotic system? We explored if swarm motion (organic vs structured) has an impact on human trust?  

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Designing for Children's Digital Wellbeing: From a Different Lens

Presented Workshop at IDC 2024, Netherlands

We explored children's digital wellbeing from different perspectives, namely, research, policy and practice! Brainstormed with groups of brilliant minds to come up with a framework that facilitates for knowledge transfer transcending boundaries and ideas for the future! 

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Nano Swarms for Cancer! 

Educating young girls on nano medicine and AI technology for cancer treatment, through a digital game made in Scratch programming! By experimenting and tuning around with different nano particle parameters, they learnt how nano robots release drugs at the right destination to attack affected tumour cells in a healthy manner! This work was part of sciene communication from EVONANO, European project on AI for Cancer!

Designing Playful and Ethical Child AI Systems

Presented Workshop at IDC 2025, Iceland

This workshop will explore how to create AI systems for children that are engaging, transparent, and ethically responsible. Our highlights include children's rights, safety, designing practical tools for responsible AI!

If you would love to participate, please register!

©2025 by Shyamli Suneesh

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