I am Nathan Dennler, a final-year Ph.D. Candidate studying Human-Robot Interaction at the University of Southern California. I reside in the Interactive and Collaborative Autonomous Robotics (ICAROS) Lab and the Interaction Lab. I am co-advised by Stefanos Nikolaidis and Maja Matarić. I explore how robots can adapt to different end-users to maximally align with their individual social and functional goals.

I address this problem in two key ways: (1) through physical adaptation of robot designs, and (2) through behavioral adaptation that aligns robot policies with users' preferences. I evaluate my approaches for these directions with specific user populations--especially assistive robots for users with limited mobility. For a more in-depth breakdown of my work, head over to my Research page.

I previously received a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.Eng. in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In my spare time, you can find me find me figure skating in Pasadena, designing and sewing garments in my living room, running around the streets of LA, or whacking/waacking/punking in any of the aforementioned spaces. If you want to see me do any of these things (and more!), check out my Miscellany page.

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Selected Publications

Journal Papers

A metric for characterizing the arm nonuse workspace in poststroke individuals using a robot arm
Nathaniel Dennler, Amelia Cain, Erica De Guzman, Carolee Winstein, Stefanos Nikolaidis, and Maja Matarić.
Science Robotics 8, eadf7723(2023). DOI:10.1126/scirobotics.adf7723.
[free access]

Using Design Metaphors to Understand User Expectations of Socially Interactive Robot Embodiments.
Nathaniel Dennler, Changxiao Ruan, Jessica Hadiwijoyo, Brenna Chen, Stefanos Nikolaidis, and Maja Matarić.
2023 ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI).
[pdf] [website]

Conference Papers

The RoSiD Tool: Empowering Users to Design Multimodal Signals for Human-Robot Collaboration.
Nathaniel Dennler, David Delgado, Daniel Zeng, Stefanos Nikolaidis, and Maja Matarić.
2023 18th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER 2023).

Design and Evaluation of a Hair Combing System Using a General-Purpose Robotic Arm.
Nathaniel Dennler, Eura Shin, Maja Matarić, and Stefanos Nikolaidis.
2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
[pdf] [video]

Personalizing User Engagement Dynamics in a Non-Verbal Communication Game for Cerebral Palsy.
Nathaniel Dennler, Catherine Yunis, Jonathan Realmuto, Terence Sanger, Stefanos Nikolaidis, and Maja Matarić.
2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN).
[pdf]