hanpe82

Hannah Pelikan

Postdoc

My research combines human-robot interaction and ethnomethodologic interaction design

Interacting with mobile autonomous systems

I take an ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) perspective on human-robot interaction to study robots in everyday interaction.

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the WASP-HS AI in Motion project led by Barry Brown and Mathias Broth, and a visiting researcher at the University of Nottingham where I collaborate with Stuart Reeves through a RAi UK international partnership.

My current work studies robots in public and I am particularly interested in the human wrangling work that makes robots (appear as) autonomous. I draw on a background in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, human-computer interaction and cognitive science to contribute an empirical understanding of how people interact with robots in everyday interaction. I draw on video recordings for analytical purposes and to develop methods for designing human-centered robots. My work advances interactional and embodied theories of human sociality and artificial intelligence.

I graduated with a PhD in Language and Culture from Linköping University advised by Leelo Keevallik and Mathias Broth and I have been affiliated with Malte Jung’s Robots in Groups lab at Cornell University through multiple research visits. I hold a Dutch engineering degree in Interaction Technology from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and a bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science from Osnabrück University, Germany.

Research Interests

  • Robots in public
  • Embodiment and Multimodality
  • Interaction design
  • Sound design

News

Research and Research environment

Publications

2025

Anna Dobrosovestnova, Franziska Babel, Hannah Pelikan (2025) Beyond the User: Mapping Subject Positions for Robots in Public Spaces 2025 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), p. 163-173 (Conference paper) Continue to DOI
Ilaria Torre, Sarah Schömbs, Katie Winkle, Sara Ljungblad, Erik Lagerstedt, Maria Teresa Parreira, Hannah Pelikan (2025) Sustainability-4-HRI, HRI-4-Sustainability Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, p. 1991-1993 (Conference paper) Continue to DOI
Hannah Pelikan, Bilge Mutlu, Stuart Reeves (2025) Making Sense of Public Space for Robot Design Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, p. 152-162 (Conference paper) Continue to DOI
Hannah Pelikan, Fanjun Bu, Wendy Ju (2025) The people behind the robots: How wizards wrangle robots in public deployments Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25)., Article 736 (Conference paper) Continue to DOI

2024

Hannah Pelikan, Katie Winkle, David Porfirio (2024) Designing Human-Robot Interactions: A StEER Tutorial ADJUNCT PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13TH NORDIC CONFERENCE ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, NORDICHI 2024, Article 52 (Conference paper) Continue to DOI

Education

Teaching

If you are a student in cognitive science or product design interested in working with me, please check my current projects for inspiration. I generally supervise user studies and interaction design projects. My main focus is on qualitative methods such as interaction analysis and ethnography as well as human-centered design. I have also supervised a number of survey and interview studies over the years.

I teach in the following courses:

Google Scholar

Visit my profile on Google Scholar for more details on my publications. 

Website

Visit my website for more information about my research.

Organisation