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About

Filomena Ciccone is a researcher specializing in human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, and affective computing, with a particular focus on applying these technologies to support older adults and individuals with cognitive impairments. Her work sits at the intersection of social robotics, emotion recognition, and clinical assessment, exploring how intelligent robotic systems can be made more personalized, empathetic, and clinically useful. Among her most significant contributions is her research into user profiling to enhance robot behavior and clinical assessment, which has garnered 19 citations, alongside her validation of the Mini-Mental State Examination administered by the Pepper robot — a landmark feasibility study demonstrating social robots' potential in dementia diagnosis and care, cited 18 times. Her involvement in the EMOTIVE Project (17 citations) advanced real-time facial emotion recognition systems capable of operating at scale within robotic platforms. Ciccone's work consistently challenges robots to exhibit coherent, human-like behavior — incorporating co-speech gestures and emotional responsiveness — to foster genuine human acceptance. With a growing citation record across multiple high-impact studies, her research is shaping the future of compassionate, intelligent robotic companions in healthcare and everyday life.