Michael F. Xu

Graduate Student at UW-Madison

I am currently a fourth year graduate student in the Computer Sciences department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I study how robots can support human connection and collaboration. My research in human-robot interaction focuses on agentic robots that can take initiative and adapt as interactions unfold. I am interested in how their behavior can respond to different people’s goals and expectations, and how people can shape and redirect that behavior over time. I investigate these questions across in-home, public, and laboratory settings, using participatory design, field deployments, and experiments.

In shared settings, a robot’s decisions about when to intervene, what support to offer, and whose input to seek can affect people with different expectations. I approach alignment as an ongoing process of shaping and revising robot behavior. My goal is to develop design guidance for robots whose participation supports people’s relationships and shared activities.