Principal Investigator

Katie Winkle

Would you like to describe the project in short with a few sentences (popular science)?

”We want to investigate whether social robots could increase engagement with Type 2 Diabetes prevention, perhaps helping us to reach individuals who don't typically get to engage with such activities. On the people side this means working closely with our collaborators in community health, as well as engaging community actors directly to shape development of the robot and it's functions. On the robotics side, this means working to design and develop socially aware, personalisable robot "characters" that will be engaging to users.”

Would you like to tell us a little about the cross-disciplinary aspects of the project?

”The PI and PhD student are based in the Department of Information Technology - fundamentally, we are roboticists. We have fantastic CO-I collaborators/co-supervisors from MedFarm and our project aligns to a larger, interdisciplinary project looking the impacts of T2D more broadly, meaning we have a great network of people with expertise ranging from medical statistics to medical ethnography. All of which we hope to leverage in our robotics project!”

How was the project and collaboration born?

”As a recently appointed assistant professor here at Uppsala, with some previous experience working on robots for healthcare, I was on the look out for chances to collaborate with colleagues from MedFarm! I very quickly arranged to come and give a talk to some folks from the U-CARE research centre, through whom I met my main collaborator on this project Meena, and now here we are!”

How can UDC be of help in your research?

”Providing opportunities for further networking and collaboration, perhaps identifying pertinent publication output venues or external funding calls which support extension of these initial projects.”

What can UDC do to make the PhD students feel like they belong to the centre?

“Opportunities for mingling, recognition of how their work fits into the larger theme of the centre - especially in cases like ours where we as technologists might feel a bit like outsiders!”

Which UDC activities will be meaningful for this project?

”Honestly I am not sure yet! I am so new to Uppsala and to the centre that I am waiting to find out more.”

Doktorand

Alessio Galatolo

Would you like to describe the project in short?

This project explores the feasibility of using a co-designed social robot for tele-health in type 2 diabetes (T2D) prevention. The aim is to address T2D prevalence, especially in disadvantaged groups, by providing a cost-effective and scalable solution using conversational AI. The proposed system involves a physically located robot accessible for in-person interactions and remote tele-health coaching sessions, maximizing reach and engagement among users.

Why did you apply to work with this project?

I was drawn to this project for its innovative use of social robots, offering opportunities to make a meaningful impact on public health, work across diverse disciplines as well as develop and apply technical skills in artificial intelligence, conversational AI, and multi-modal agent design for personalised and scalable tele-health solutions.

How can the UDC be of help in your research?

Some ways UDC can be of help for this project include but are not limited to: offering collaborations on public awareness events, offering opportunities for research methods and technology validation, continue hosting seminars/expert workshops.

What UDC activities have you participated in?

Winter meet-ups, seminar series, introductory course to diabetes (2 credits).