Developing capable robotic systems & understandable robot interactions
Meet Zhao Han
he/him · /’jau̇-‘hän/ · 韩昭
Zhao Han is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida, joining the faculty in August 2023. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado School of Mines.
His research lies broadly in human-robot interaction (HRI), robotics, AI, and augmented reality (AR). He focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating novel robotic systems and interactions, for embodied robots to be more capable and understandable while interacting and collaborating with humans.
To advance this work, Dr. Han takes an interdisciplinary and human-centered approach, developing broad expertise in explainable AI (robot explanations) for trust, projector-based and head-worn AR for communication, mobile manipulation for real-world evaluation, cognitive status-informed references, robot failures for robustness, and more.
Still launching his career, Dr. Han has already published over 25 peer-reviewed papers, collaborating across universities like CMU and fields like Psychology. He received the best long-paper award at INLG 2022 and the best late-breaking report third prize at HRI 2022. He also led teams to win multiple robot competitions.
He believes service is beneficial to academic life and society, fostering friendship, collaboration, and communities. Dr. Zhao Han is a Program Committee (PC) member of HRI 2023 and a General Co-Chair of the 2022 AI-HRI symposium. He has also co-organized multiple workshops and chaired paper sessions.
Recognized with a university-wide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Award, Dr. Han takes action on DEI. He founded Mines Asian Community Alliance and co-organizes the Inclusive HRI Workshop. He is also active in outreach to engage under-represented groups.
With a strong DEI component, Dr. Han recently taught in Augmented Reality. Rated 4.72/5.0, students confirmed his real-world and student-focused approach. He has also mentored 25 students, including 12 underrepresented, 12 female, and three graduate students.
Dr. Han holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UMass Lowell in the HRI Lab, directed by AAAI Fellow Dr. Holly Yanco. Previously, he spent time in Canada and received his M.S. (advised by Dr. Carson Leung in the Database and Data Mining Lab) and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba.
News
from Zhao Han
Two fully funded Ph.D. positions are available. Apply by April 15 for Fall 2023 admission →
Mar 7, 2023
Our second edition of the workshop on Affective Human-Robot Interaction (AHRI) was accepted to ACII 2023, the annual International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction!
Feb 14, 2023
I just uploaded the video presentation for our HRI 2023 paper Crossing Reality: Comparing Physical and Virtual Robot Deixis!
Jan 11, 2023
[HRI '23 LBR] Our late breaking report (LBR) "Towards Improved Replicability of Human Studies in Human-Robot Interaction: Recommendations for Formalized Reporting" was accepted to HRI 2023! This is an important work to improve the validity of HRI study and results.
Dec 21, 2022
[AR Course Evaluation] Students rated 4.72/5.0 for their learning experience in my Fall 2022 Augmented Reality (AR) course! It is consistent across all sub-scales.
Dec 2, 2022
[HRI '23] Two papers were just accepted to HRI 2023, the top HRI conference!
Nov 28, 2022
[AAAI '23 UG] I am a program committee member of the AAAI 2023 Undergraduate Consortium to provide critical feedback and practical early career advice to undergraduate researchers!
His Research
Human-Robot Interaction
(HRI)
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
(AI)
Augmented Reality
(AR)
Recent Publications
Inclusive HRI II: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community
