At AIxIA 2024 in Bolzano, I co-authored with Andrea Franceschini, Silvana Badaloni, Emanuele Menegatti, and Antonio Rodà a study on gender bias in educational robots, presented at the BEWARE workshop.
The paper titled “Gender Biases in Robots for Education” was included in the workshop program and proceedings.
The study investigated how educational robots are perceived by adults — mainly teachers and university students. The results revealed persistent gendered stereotypes: while female-styled robots were often described as simpler, male-styled ones were more frequently associated with intelligence and creativity. These findings underline the importance of designing inclusive robots that avoid reinforcing biases and can appeal equally to different learners.
Although I could not attend the workshop in person, contributing as first author and seeing our work published was a meaningful milestone in my PhD journey and in our broader effort to foster equity and inclusion in STEM education through robotics.
