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About

Sriram Subramanian is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work spans human-robot interaction, haptic technologies, acoustic metamaterials, and soft robotics. He has made foundational contributions to understanding how robots can communicate more naturally with humans, particularly through his investigations into co-verbal and beat gestures in human-robot interaction. His early and highly influential work demonstrated that humanoid robots employing conversational gestures — those spontaneous movements that accompany human speech — can meaningfully improve listener engagement and communication effectiveness, work that has accumulated nearly 30 citations per paper and helped shape modern social robotics. Subramanian's research extends beyond robotics into immersive technologies; his 2016 examination of haptic technologies for direct touch in virtual reality (29 citations) addressed a critical gap in fully immersive VR experiences. More recently, he has pioneered work in unconventional materials science, including electrically induced liquid metal droplet manipulation with applications in flexible electronics and soft robotics, and dynamically reconfigurable ultrasonic metamaterials capable of active sound-field modulation. This breadth of contribution — from gesture-driven robot behavior to programmable physical matter — reflects a researcher persistently pushing the boundaries of how humans interact with intelligent and responsive systems.