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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
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
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
Di Cesare G., Koush Y., Zeidman P., Sciutti A., Friston K., Rizzolatti G.
Bridging feeling and motion: Insula-premotor dynamics in the processing of action vitality forms
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 122, (no. 37)
DOI 10.1073/pnas.2514139122
Article Journal
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
2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Conference Paper Conference
2025
Fedozzi M. G., Rea F., Sandini G., Triesch J., Sciutti A.
Canalizing Babbling: Development-Inspired Goal Sampling for Visuo-Motor Learning
IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning
Conference Paper Conference
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Dissemination
2025
Sciutti A., Gori M.
Apprendimento in sistemi umani e artificiali
Ciclo “Scienza condivisa 2025” su “Intelligenze Future”. Curatori: Alberto Diaspro, Enrico Paroletti. Genoa, May 12th
Public Event
2025
Sciutti A.
Cognizione Artificiale e Robot Collaborativi
IULM for the City lecture, Milan, April 9th
Public Event
2025
Sciutti A.
Intelligenza Artificiale & Robotica Umanoide
THE BIG LEAP – Leadership Evolution AI Performance Cisco AI Executive Forum, Milan, JUne 12 2025
Outreach
2025
Sciutti A.
Panelist on the Future of Women in STEM
Il mondo che vogliamo, WISTEM Event for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2025, Genoa, February 11th
Public Event
2025
Sciutti A.
Panel on Human and Artificial Intelligence
RomeCup Inaugural Conference, Rome, May 7th
Public Event
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Scientific Talks
2025
Sciutti A.
Architecting Interaction: Towards a Human-Aware Cognitive Architecture
Architecting Intelligence: Exploring Intersections in Cognitive Robotics and Developmental Learning Workshop at ICDL 2025, Prague, Sept 16th
Workshop/Symposium
2025
Sciutti A.
Embodied Cognition for Human-Inspired Collaborative Robotics
Manchester University, Sept 25th
Institute
2025
Sciutti A.
Embodied Communication and Artificial Cognition for better Collaborative Robotics
IRCN, University of Tokyo, Japan, July 11th
Institute
2025
Sciutti A.
Embodied Communication and Artificial Cognition in Collaborative Robotics
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, March 31st
Institute
2025
Sciutti A.
Embodied communication and robots' cognition
Universita' Sant'Anna, Pisa, 15 January 2025
Institute
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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
Pasquali D., Garello L., Belgiovine G., Eldardeer O., Lastrico L., Rea F., Mastrogiovanni F., Sandini G., Sciutti A.
Best Paper Award Finalist with paper "No Robot is an Island: An Always-On Cognitive Architecture for Social Context Awareness in Dynamic Environments"
2025
Matarese M., Guerrieri V., Kahya R., Rea F., Sciutti A.
Best Short Paper Award at the 17th International Conference on Social Robotics + AI (ICSR)
2025
Pasquali D., Sciutti A.
HTE Hackaton 2nd Place - INnerSIGHT project
2025
Antonj M., Memeo M., Pasquali D., Sciutti A.
HTE Hackaton winner - myCube project
2025
Beetz M., Inamura T., Korsah A., Oh J., Sciutti A.
IEEE RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award for the Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics.
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Editorships
2024
Sciutti A.
Frontiers in Robotics and AI - Human-robot Interaction
2024-2025
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
2025
Kümpel M., Beetz M., Eldardeer O., Sciutti A., Scheibl M., Wrede B.
1st Workshop on Interactive Task Learning in Human-Robot co-construction (ITL4HRI) at RO-MAN 2025
2025
Matarese M., Eldardeer O., Farkas I., Sciutti A.
Special session in Explanations in Social HRI - International Conference on Social Robotics + AI (ICSR+AI 2025)
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)
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