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Joel Currie

ABOUT ME

Trying to Make Robots and Humans More Understandable to Each Other

I’m Joel, a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

My work focuses on Human-Robot Interaction and Social Robotics, where I investigate how to make interactions between humans and robots more intuitive, seamless, and mutually understandable.

Me at dinner

I started my training in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, where I developed a strong technical foundation. I became interested in how people and robots interact on a functional but also social level, and began researching how humans and robots can better understand and predict each other. My research integrates robotics, and cognitive science to help build more intuitive and collaborative relationships between people and robots. Recently I've also been very interested in how to develop 'cognitive primatives' for robots.

PUBLICATIONS

Google Scholar

Peer-Reviewed

Joel Currie et al. More Than Meets the Eye? An Experimental Design to Test Robot Visual Perspective-Taking Facilitators Beyond Mere-Appearance. HRI, 2024, LBR
Joel Currie et al. Sonic Sleight of Hand: Sound induces illusory distortions in the perception and prediction of robot action. International Journal of Social Robotics, 2024

Preprints

Joel Currie et al. Towards Social Foundation Models: A Framework and Synthetic Dataset for Grounding Visual Perspective Taking in Robots. Zenodo, 2025
Joel Currie et al. Towards Embodied Cognition in Robots via Spatially Grounded Synthetic Worlds. ARXIV PREPRINTS, 2025
Joel Currie et al. Mind Meld or Mismatch: A Comparison of Visual Perspective Taking Towards Humans and Robots in Face-to-Face Interactions. OSF PREPRINTS, 2024

PAST PROJECTS

Desire Health Smart Mask: I prototyped the first version of the Desire Health Mask — a smart wearable that continuously tracks vital signs like pulse rate, oxygen saturation, and body temperature. The device displays real-time health status through color-coded lights and an OLED screen, while also wirelessly transmitting and storing biometric data for remote monitoring. This enables a data-driven approach to health assessment and early intervention. The project was developed in collaboration with Desire Hygiene. More details

EXPERIENCE

WORK HISTORY

Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, IT)

PhD Student Fellow (Social cognition in human-robot interaction)
2025-01 — 2025-09

University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, GB)

Research Assistant (Robotics)
2021-05 — 2022-09

EDUCATION

University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, GB)

Masters of Research (MRes) Psychology
2021-10 — 2022-10

University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, GB)

Masters of Engineering (MEng) Electrical and Electronic
2016-09 — 2021-05

CONTACT

WHERE I WORK

Aberdeen, UK
Email: j dot currie dot 22 at abdn dot ac dot uk