Claire chatted to Edith-Clare Hall from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) about accelerating scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Edith-Clare Hall is a PhD student at the University of Bristol, Frontier Specialist at ARIA, and leader of Women in Robotics UK. She focuses on the critical interfaces where interconnected systems meet, working to close the gap between academic research and real-world deployment to unlock cyber-physical autonomy. At ARIA, she works as a technical generalist, accelerating breakthroughs across emerging and future programmes. Her PhD research focussed on creating bespoke robotic systems that deliver support for people with progressive conditions such as motor neurone disease (MND).

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Claire chatted to Chad Jenkins from the University of Michigan about how robots can learn from people and assist us in our daily lives.

Odest Chadwicke Jenkins is a Professor of Robotics and a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. His research addresses problems in robot learning from demonstration and human-robot interaction, primarily focused on dexterous mobile manipulation and robot perception. In 2022, he founded the Robotics Major Degree Program for undergraduates at the University of Michigan. He was awarded the 2024 ACM/CMD-IT Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing.

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Claire chatted to Yuen Ting Chan from the Natural History Museum about using robots to automate molecular biology experiments.

Yuen Ting Chan has nearly 20 years of experience working on translating, developing and optimising laboratory protocols, from DNA forensics to the biomedical field. She has brought automation to molecular laboratories for over 12 years, translating the laboratory protocols into bespoke scripts for a wide variety of liquid handling instruments. Her role at the Natural History Museum is to bring automation to the molecular laboratories, thus providing more opportunities for researchers to work on projects with large sample numbers for the wide variety of specimens within the museum.

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Last month I had the pleasure of attending the Smart City Robotics Competition in Milton Keynes, where I spoke to the organisers, competitors, exhibitors and attendees of this exciting 3-day event. Check out our conversations in this month's bonus episode!

This bonus episode was sponsored by euRobotics, an international non-profit association that aims to boost European robotics research, development, and innovation. Thank you to euRobotics for their support! And thank you to Smart City Consultancy for inviting me to attend the competition.

This is the first time I've recorded interviews at a live event like this, so I'd love to know what you think. Would you like to see more content like this in the future? Let me know!

Listen to the full catalogue of bonus episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/collection/681853

Find out more about euRobotics: https://eu-robotics.net/

Learn more about the Smart City Robotics competition: https://www.smartcityconsultancy.co.uk/

Claire chatted to Ali K. Hoshiar from the University of Essex about how microrobots move and work together.

Ali Hoshiar is a Senior Lecturer in Robotics at the University of Essex and Director of the Robotics for Under Millimetre Innovation (RUMI) Lab. He leads the EPSRC-funded 'In-Target' project and was awarded the university's Best Interdisciplinary Research Award. His research focuses on microrobotics, soft robotics, and data-driven mechatronic systems for medical and agri-tech applications. He also holds an MBA, adding strategic and commercial insight to his technical work.

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Claire chatted to Frances Zhu from the Colorado School of Mines about intelligent robotic systems for space exploration.

Frances Zhu has a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University. She was previously a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow and an Assistant Research Professor in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii, specialising in machine learning, dynamics, systems, and controls engineering. Since 2025, she has been an Assistant Professor at the Colorado School of Mines in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, affiliated with the Robotics program and Space Resources Program.

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Robot Talk will be back for a new season very soon — make sure you're subscribed to be the first to hear the latest episodes!

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Research into humanoid robots is a rapidly advancing field, with companies around the world striving to produce robots that look and act more like us. But what is it about recreating ourselves in robot form that we find so captivating? Why do humanoid robots both enthral and terrify us? And is our obsession with robotic humans just vanity, or could they play valuable roles in our future society?

In this special live recording at Imperial College London as part of the Great Exhibition Road Festival, Claire chatted to Ben Russell (Science Museum), Maryam Banitalebi Dehkordi (University of Hertfordshire) and Petar Kormushev (Imperial College London) about humanoid robotics.

Ben Russell has been the Science Museum's Curator of Mechanical Engineering since 2004. He has curated six permanent galleries and temporary exhibitions at the museum, including Engineers (2023), Robots (2017), Cosmonauts (2015) and James Watt's Workshop (2011). He is the author of James Watt: Making the World Anew, (Reaktion Books, 2014), and editor of Robots (Scala, 2017), as well as numerous published and conference papers.

Maryam Banitalebi Dehkordi is a Senior Lecturer in Robotics and AI at the University of Hertfordshire. She has a master's degree in Mechatronics and Automatic Control Engineering from the University Technology Malaysia and a Ph.D. in Perceptual Robotics from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy. Her expertise spans assistive robots, mobile robots, agricultural robots, industrial robots, humanoid robots, parallel manipulators, navigation, and outdoor autonomous vehicles.

Petar Kormushev is Director of the Robot Intelligence Lab at Imperial College London and an Associate Professor in Robotics at the Dyson School of Design Engineering. His research focus is on reinforcement learning algorithms and their application to autonomous robots. Petar's long-term goal is to create robots that can learn by themselves and adapt to dynamic environments. His machine learning algorithms have been applied to a variety of humanoid robots, including COMAN and iCub.

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Claire chatted to Gabriel Skantze from KTH Royal Institute of Technology about having natural face-to-face conversations with robots.

Gabriel Skantze is a Professor of Speech Communication and Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He specializes in conversational systems and leads several research projects on conversational AI and human-robot interaction. His work focuses on computational models of spoken interaction, integrating both verbal and non-verbal aspects such as prosody, turn-taking, feedback, and joint attention. In 2014, he co-founded Furhat Robotics, where he continues to serve part-time as Chief Scientist.

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Claire chatted to Amy LaViers from the Robotics, Automation, and Dance Lab about the creative relationship between humans and machines.

Amy LaViers works at the intersection of robotics and dance. Her writing, choreography, and machine designs have been presented internationally at performing arts and engineering venues, including Merce Cunningham's studios, the Performance Arcade, and universities like Berkeley and Brown. She is the founder of three startup companies, including AE Machines, which won "Product Design of the Year" at the 4th Rev Awards in Chicago. Amy runs the Robotics, Automation, and Dance (RAD) Lab, a non-profit for art-making, commercialization, education, outreach, and research.

Robot Talk LiveBe part of the audience for a live recording at the Great Exhibition Road Festival this weekend: https://www.greatexhibitionroadfestival.co.uk/event/why-are-we-building-humanoid-robots/

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