Marayna Martinez
Papers
5
Total Citations
448
H-Index
5
About
Marayna Martinez is a leading researcher in human-robot interaction, with a focus on social robotics for early childhood education. Her work centers on designing autonomous robotic learning companions that can personalize tutoring by adapting to children’s affective states—a critical but understudied aspect of effective one-on-one instruction. Her most influential paper, “Affective Personalization of a Social Robot Tutor for Children’s Second Language Skills” (306 citations), demonstrates how robots can modulate a child’s emotional engagement to improve learning outcomes. Martinez also investigates how the framing of a robot—as a social agent versus a machine—shapes children’s social behavior, a finding with implications for trust and interaction design. She is the creator of Tega, an expressive, Android-based social robot platform (37 citations) designed for long-term classroom deployment. Her work is grounded in real-world practice, as shown in her study “Lessons from teachers on performing HRI studies with young children in schools” (46 citations), where she deployed a robot in three preschool classrooms for two months, collaborating closely with teachers. Martinez’s research bridges engineering, developmental psychology, and education, offering practical insights for building emotionally intelligent robots that support young learners.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 4Tega: A social robot37 citations · 2016
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