Research & invited talks
Chorong Park and Fellow Speakers Explore Care Robotics at EMBRACE 2026
The RO-MAN workshop connected Park's work on trust with cross-cultural robot teleoperation, emotionally responsive companions, and a shared discussion about care.
Original LinkedIn post:
Published on ELARA:
Updated on ELARA:
Chorong Park opened the invited talks at EMBRACE 2026, a workshop on emotion-aware, multicultural robotics for aging and care. Held during IEEE RO-MAN in Kitakyushu, Japan, on August 24, it brought speakers and participants together around a shared challenge: making robotic assistance responsive to people, not just tasks. [1][2]
In her talk, From Affection to Agency, Park drew on community engagement and a study with 22 older adults. She explored how friendly behavior can encourage connection but also soften attention to privacy, arguing for understandable robot behavior, meaningful control, and consent people can withdraw. [1]
Assistant Professor Tomoya Sasaki and postdoctoral researcher Siméon Capy, both at Tokyo University of Science, presented the ARC Project. Their work examines robot teleoperation across distance and cultural settings, including studies in Canada and Japan. [1][2]
Professor Masahiro Shiomi, affiliated with Kyoto University and ATR, discussed affective interaction with a baby-like robot for older adults and caregivers. Lightning talks added perspectives on attention-aware remote caregiving and VR-based control of companion robots. [1][2]
Organized by Waterloo's Yue Hu, Moojan Ghafurian, Thomas M. Kwok, and Neil Fernandes, the workshop also made space for group discussion. The exchange points to a useful design insight: warmth, cultural fit, and human control need to be considered together, rather than treated as separate finishing touches. [1][2]
Sources
Adapted from Chorong Park's LinkedIn post. LinkedIn images are presented in their original order. Additional website images are credited separately and are not part of the original LinkedIn gallery.