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Bachelor of Arts and Design (specialized in Industrial Design), (Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru)
In the later years of undergraduate, Valeria was a research assistant and consultant within GRID (Industrial Design Research Group). She focused on research and design applied to the Human-Robot Interaction field, as well as applying Design Thinking to hackathons (coined diseñaton). It is in 2015 when she designed and developed Heka, a medical robot assistant for elders in need of health monitoring at home. The design won first place at the design competition of the International Conference on Social Robotics held at Paris, France. Since then, her area of interest focused on social robotics and technology centred in human interaction. Before QUT, Valeria worked on the design industry in Peru to train her experience in Product Design, CAD modelling and interdisciplinary teamwork. However, she also consulted and collaborated with international teams in India, Switzerland and China in need of design skills and practices
Thesis Title: Supporting Affective Connections between Elders Through Socially Interactive Robots: A Design Framework
The purpose of this research is to investigate how to design Socially Interactive Robots that promote a prolonged elder-robot relationship within the home context and that aid the continuous social engagement between elders and their community, taking into account their context of established habits and routines. This research aims to inform the future development of social robotics to provide a positive impact on elders’ every day.
Principal Supervisor: Aspro Markus Rittenbruch
Associate Supervisor: Dr Marianella Chamorro-Koc, Dr Jared Donovan
Estimated completion date: February, 2023