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About

Rosanne Siino is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction (HRI) and organizational behavior, whose work explores how social structures and communication shape our relationships with autonomous systems. Her most influential study, "Robots, Gender & Sensemaking" (45 citations), is an ethnographic investigation revealing how sex-segregated job roles in a hospital environment fundamentally alter how different groups of workers interpret and accept a mobile autonomous robot—a critical insight for designers aiming to deploy robots successfully in real-world settings. In "Colleague vs. tool" (29 citations), Siino experimentally demonstrated that a robot’s disclosure of task versus affective information significantly impacts human feelings during collaboration, challenging assumptions about purely functional machine interactions. Her earlier foundational work (14 citations) introduced the novel concept that sensemaking and structural adaptation begin *before* a technology even arrives, triggered by its anticipated introduction. By bridging micro-level communication dynamics with macro-level organizational structures, Siino’s research remains essential for anyone designing robots that must integrate into complex, human-centered environments.