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About

Anna Charlotte Schultz is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, cognitive robotics, and autonomous mobile systems. Her work spans two interconnected domains: creating socially intelligent robots capable of natural communication, and developing robust navigation and localization systems for mobile robots operating in complex environments. Schultz's most influential contributions include her role in Carnegie Mellon's social robots project, culminating in Valerie the roboceptionist — a landmark long-term social interaction study that has garnered over 400 citations. Her research into perspective-taking in robots (307 citations) laid important groundwork for robots that can model human viewpoints, a foundational capability for collaborative human-robot teamwork. Her sustained investigation of spatial language in human-robot dialogue demonstrated how robots can interpret and respond to the rich, context-dependent descriptions humans naturally use to communicate about their surroundings. On the technical side, her development of ARIEL and evidence-grid-based continuous localization methods (206 and 121 citations respectively) addressed core challenges in autonomous exploration and mapping. With a portfolio accumulating well over 1,700 citations, Schultz's interdisciplinary contributions have shaped how researchers approach robot autonomy, natural multimodal interaction, and the design of machines that can meaningfully coexist with humans.