Frauke Zeller (Collaborator)

Reader (Associate Professor), Chair in Design Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, and Co-director, Institute for Design Informatics

Her expertise is in Human-Robot Interaction, Human-Machine Interaction, AI, AI and creativity and ethics, and digital methods. Before moving to Scotland in 2023, Frauke was Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada, where she has been holding a range of research-related positions, such as director of the Centre for Communicating Knowledge, director of The Creative School Catalyst (a research catalyst and facilitator), director of The Creative School Audience Lab. She is the Edinburgh University lead in the Foresight Lab team within the CoSTAR Network, and was also involved AHRC-funded cluster on Creative Informatics with a focus on AI and Creativity (see her recent TEDx talk).

Frauke has been involved in multiple international research projects and was awarded a range of major research grants, among them a Tri-Council grant (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHRC), and has been co-applicant and collaborator in a project that develops AI-based social robots for pediatric pain management, funded by the new UK-Canada AI Research programme. Other projects are related to AI, such as developing higher education training courses in Responsible AI (funded by NSERC), analyzing social media content related to human rights issues and youth in Central America (RCYP), the development of AI-based technologies like chatbots for news media outlets and knowledge translation (SSHRC funded Partnership project, GJIL and XJO). Other projects were funded by the European Commission or the German Research Foundation.

Apart from multiple scholarly publications, Frauke is also the co-creator of Canada’s first hitchhiking robot – hitchBOT. The project garnered broad public interest all around the world, and which is now, like other of her artwork, a permanent museum exhibition.