Francesco Lanza

About

Francesco Lanza is a leading researcher at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive robotics, and human-robot teaming. His work focuses on designing intelligent robotic systems that can collaborate naturally with humans, particularly in high-stakes healthcare environments. Lanza’s most impactful contribution, “Agents and robots for collaborating and supporting physicians in healthcare scenarios” (65 citations), established foundational architectures for deploying autonomous agents alongside medical staff. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his research gained urgent relevance with “Robots as intelligent assistants to face COVID-19 pandemic” (33 citations), which explored how service robots could reduce human exposure to infection while maintaining essential services. Lanza is also known for pioneering cognitive architectures that enable robots to introspect and communicate their internal reasoning processes—a concept he developed through papers on “Knowledge acquisition through introspection” and “Inner speech for a self-conscious robot.” His work on “At Your Service” extends these ideas into hospitality, demonstrating how robots can learn user preferences and make personalized recommendations. With over 140 total citations, Lanza’s research is shaping the next generation of socially aware, explainable robots that can work safely and effectively alongside people in real-world settings.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Agents and robots for collaborating and supporting physicians in healthcare scenarios

   65 citations · 2020
2. 2
   Robots as intelligent assistants to face COVID-19 pandemic

   33 citations · 2020
3. 3
   Knowledge acquisition through introspection in Human-Robot Cooperation

   13 citations · 2018
4. 4
   A Cognitive Architecture for Human-Robot Teaming Interaction.

   13 citations · 2019
5. 5
   At Your Service

   5 citations · 2020
6. 6
   At Your Service: Coffee Beans Recommendation From a Robot Assistant

   5 citations · 2020
7. 7
   Agent talks about itself: an implementation using Jason, CArtAgO and Speech Acts

   3 citations · 2023
8. 8
   Human-Robot Teaming: Perspective on Analysis and Implementation Issues.

   3 citations · 2018
9. 9
   Inside the robot's mind during human-robot interaction.

   3 citations · 2019
10. 10
    Inner speech for a self-conscious robot

    2 citations · 2018

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links