Silvia Rossi is a full professor of Computer Science at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Naples Federico II. She serves as the scientific director of the PRISCA Lab (Projects of Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Cognitive Systems).

In her presentation, Silvia will cover the behavioural and relational aspects of using robots with people with chronic conditions. Using as an example a pilot with robots in homes of people with Alzheimer, Silvia will cover the ways people react, the way they behave, questions of privacy and trust, and how long-lasting relationships can be built between the users and the technology itself. She will also cover some of the learnings as well as ethical questions that are driving further tests and pilots with robots and people in social care.

Prof. Rossi holds an M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Naples Federico II (2001) and a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies from the University of Trento (2006). She has played a key role in numerous EU and international research projects and is currently the principal investigator and coordinator of several major initiatives, including the MSCA-ITN-2020 PERSEO (European Training Network on Personalized Robotics as Service Oriented applications), HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN SWEET (Social aWareness for sErvicE roboTs), and HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN TRAIL (TRAnsparent, InterpretabLe Robots). She also coordinates the national PRIN project ADVISOR (ADaptiVe legIble robotS for trustwORthy health coaching).

Prof. Rossi chaired the RO-MAN conferences in 2020 and 2022 and is an active member of programme committees for leading conferences in human-robot interaction and artificial intelligence. Her research focuses on Socially Assistive Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction, Cognitive Architectures, and User Profiling and Recommender Systems. Her work explores computational methods for designing autonomous agents that can adapt their behaviour to effectively interact with and support users. Prof. Rossi has authored over 200 publications in international journals, books, and conference proceedings, advancing the fields of robotics and AI.