Hatice Gunes

Hatice Gunes

Hatice Gunes is a Full Professor of Affective Intelligence and Robotics and Director of the AFAR Lab at the University of Cambridge, conducting groundbreaking research in multimodal, social, and affective intelligence for AI systems and robots, with a strong focus on wellbeing, ethics, fairness and explainability.

Recognized among Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists” since 2020, she has earned numerous accolades, including, Honouree for  Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature 2025, Best Student Paper Award Finalist @ IEEE FG’24, Best Paper Award in Responsible Affective Computing @ ACII’23, RSJ/KROS Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award Finalist @ IEEE RO-MAN’21, Best Paper Award Finalist @ IEEE RO-MAN’20, Outstanding Paper Award @ IEEE FG’11, and Best Demo Award @ IEEE ACII’09.

She has also been awarded a prestigious EPSRC Fellowship to explore adaptive robotic EQ for wellbeing and named a Faculty Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Her work on robotic coaches for mental wellbeing attracted global media attention, with over 1,700 reports in outlets like The Guardian, BBC News, Medical News Today, ScienceDaily, Sky News, and Bloomberg and received the Better Future Award at Cambridge Univ. CST Department’s Hall of Fame Awards (2023) and was Runner-up for the Collaboration Award at the Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Research Impact & Engagement (2023). 

Prof. Gunes has held prominent roles, including President of the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing, General Chair of IEEE ACII’19, and Program Chair of ACM/IEEE HRI’20 and IEEE FG’17. She also chaired the Steering Board of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing and served on the HRI Steering Committee .

Her research has been supported by major grants from EPSRC, Innovate UK, Alan Turing Institute, EU Horizon 2020, Google, and CHANSE. She is a sought-after speaker, delivering talks at top-tier venues, including a Royal Institution lecture on creating technology with EQ, which has garnered ~33K views on YouTube.

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  • Organization
    University of Cambridge
  • Profession
    Full Professor of Affective Intelligence and Robotics and Director, AFAR Lab
Related sessions
In person
10 July 2025
10:30 - 10:50
EST - New York
CST - Beijing
PST - Los Angeles
AWST - Perth, Australia