Ioanna Giorgi

Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence
Email
i.giorgi@kent.ac.uk
Telephone
01227827168
Ioanna Giorgi

About

Dr. Ioanna Giorgi received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Manchester,  U.K. She specialises in brain-inspired architectures to explore the role of human language for high-level cognitive modelling in developmental and cognitive robotics. Dr Giorgi joined the University of Kent in 2022 as Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, following her former role as a Research Fellow in Computational Intelligence (CI) and Robotics at the University of Plymouth, where she was involved in the EU Interreg 2 Seas Mers  Zeeën ‘‘AGE Independently’’ (AGE’IN) Project.

Research interests

Dr. Giorgi's primary research agenda includes:
  • Human-language-facilitated neuro-robotics
  • Cognitive architectures, deep learning, reinforcement learning
  • Natural language processing (NLP) and understanding (NLU)
  • Multilingual cognition
  • Socially assistive robotics
  • Human-robot interaction (HRI) and trust
  • Socio-technical aspects of security in AI and Robotic applications 

Teaching

Main areas of teaching include cognitive robotics, deep learning, databases, and cyber law.

Supervision

I am looking for students to undertake research in cognitive and developmental robotics for the design of intelligent behaviour in robots, involving high-level perception, motor, language, and cognitive skills. The research is inspired by human cognition and brain mechanisms to computationally model the incremental stages of the acquisition of behavioural and cognitive skills that are observed in child development.
This approach can be applied to the following studies and example topics:
  • Socially assistive robotics (SAR) in health, psychosocial and elder care
  • Conversational social companions (including multilingual)
  • Human-robot interaction (HRI) and collaboration (cobots)
  • Theory of mind competencies in robots
  • Trust in HRI
  • Conceptual development in robots
The Cognitive Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CoRAS) laboratory at the School of Computing has access to several humanoids (NAO) and socially interactive robot platforms (Buddy Pro, Q.BO One, Amy A1), mobile robots (Turtlebot Waffle Pi, Burger), pet-like companion robots (JOY FOR ALL) and gadgets like AR Epson glasses and Microsoft HoloLens.
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