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About

Marcelo Marques da Rocha is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the compelling intersection of human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, and healthcare technology. His research focuses primarily on developing accessible, open-source robotic platforms designed to support vulnerable populations, including children with autism spectrum disorder and patients requiring non-pharmacological therapeutic interventions. Among his most influential contributions is his work on multimodal interaction for social robots assisting children with autism in emotion regulation, which has garnered 25 citations and established him as a notable voice in assistive robotics. He has championed open-source development through projects like the EVA (Embodied Voice Assistant) platform and its companion simulator, EvaSIM, democratizing access to socially assistive robot research — particularly relevant for under-resourced research communities across Latin America. Rocha has also addressed a critical barrier in the field: programming complexity. His development of domain-specific XML-based languages for programming social robots lowers the technical threshold for deploying these systems in real-world healthcare and educational settings. His low-cost FRED robot platform further reflects a consistent commitment to accessibility and scalability. Collectively, his portfolio, accumulating over 70 citations since 2022, represents a meaningful push toward making socially assistive robotics practical, inclusive, and widely deployable.