Papers
7
Total Citations
49
H-Index
4
About
Leena Mathur is a leading researcher at the intersection of affective computing, social robotics, and artificial intelligence, whose work focuses on imbuing machines with the ability to perceive and respond to human emotion. Her most impactful contribution, "Modeling User Empathy Elicited by a Robot Storyteller" (2021, 23 citations), pioneers the computational modeling of human empathy during human-robot interaction, laying the groundwork for more emotionally attuned AI. She is also a key contributor to the widely adopted OpenFace 3.0 system (2025), a lightweight, multitask framework for comprehensive facial behavior analysis that is advancing research in vision and multimodal interaction. Mathur’s investigations into socially assistive robots for children with diverse needs, including month-long in-home deployments, demonstrate her commitment to translating AI into real-world therapeutic support. Her recent work on the technical challenges of building socially intelligent AI agents (2024) further cements her role as a thought leader in the field. With a research portfolio that bridges technical innovation and human-centered application, Mathur is shaping the future of socially-aware AI.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Modeling User Empathy Elicited by a Robot Storyteller23 citations · 2021
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