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Alessandra Sciutti

Senior Tenure Track Researcher, head of the CONTACT Unit
Senior Researcher Tenure Track - Principal Investigator
COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies
Alessandra Sciutti
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 Senior 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 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
2026
Cocchella F., Mongile S., Pusceddu G., Andrighetto L., Rea F., Sciutti A.
Come Closer: A Social Bench to Measure Children’s Interaction with Robots
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 16131 LNAI, pp. 572-577
DOI 10.1007/978-981-95-2379-5_48
Conference Paper Book Series
2026
Pusceddu G., Schiatti L., Senacheribbe A., Gori M., Bue A.D., Sciutti A.
Drawing Strategies during Human-Robot Symbolic Communication
Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, HRI Companion 2026, pp. 160-164
DOI 10.1145/3776734.3794374
Conference Paper Conference
2026
Bernotat J., Jirak D., Triglia L., Rea F., Sciutti A.
Driven by Personality? Human Perceptions of Intraverted and Extraverted Robots in Car Driving Scenarios
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 16132 LNAI, pp. 58-75
DOI 10.1007/978-981-95-2382-5_5
Conference Paper Book Series
2026
Cocchella F., Mongile S., Pusceddu G., Rea F., Sciutti A., Andrighetto L.
How Dare You, iCub? Robots Face Harsher Judgments than Humans in Social Exclusion
European Association of Social Psychology 2026 General Meeting
Poster Conference
2026
Cocchella F., Mongile S., Pusceddu G., Lastrico L., Belgiovine G., Tanevska A., Andrighetto L., Rea F., Sciutti A.
How Dare You, iCub? Robots Face Harsher Judgments than Humans in Social Exclusion
International Journal of Social Robotics, vol. 18, (no. 2)
DOI 10.1007/s12369-025-01347-x
Article Journal