Dr Samuele Vinanzi PhD
Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Summary
I am a Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. I am specialized in the area of Cognitive Robotics, which is an interdisciplinary field that combines principles from robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive science, and psychology to develop intelligent robotic systems capable of perceiving, reasoning, and interacting with the environment in a human-like manner.
About
I studied Computer Engineering at the University of Palermo, Italy, where I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in 2013 and 2016, respectively. For my Master's dissertation, I developed a system that enabled a humanoid robot to conduct a live orchestra based on the emotions expressed by the audience. We publicly showcased this system in October 2016 at the concert hall of the Musical School "Bellini" in Palermo.
In 2018, I relocated to the UK to work as a Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Assistant at the University of Plymouth. My research focused on Artificial Trust, where I explored a robot's ability to determine the trustworthiness of the human it collaborates with. This project was funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Ï㽶ÊÓƵ (AFOSR).
Following this, I pursued my doctoral studies at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Prof Angelo Cangelosi, supported by sponsorship from the Honda Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Institute. During my doctoral program, I developed computational models for intention reading and collaboration in humanoid robots. In 2021, I successfully completed my PhD. Subsequently, I continued my research as a Postdoctoral Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Associate at the University of Manchester for several years. Once again, my work was sponsored by AFOSR, and I focused on developing symbolic cognitive architectures for human-robot interaction.
In 2023, I joined Ï㽶ÊÓƵ as a Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. In this role, I continue my research endeavours and lead the Cognitive Systems and Robotics MSc AI module.
Senior Lecturer
Teaching
School of Computing and Digital Technologies
College of Business, Technology and Engineering
Games and Artificial Intelligence
Courses taught:
MSc Artificial Intelligence
Modules taught:
Cognitive Systems and Robotics
AI Ï㽶ÊÓƵ and Development Projects
Dissertations for Computing
Ï㽶ÊÓƵ
Ï㽶ÊÓƵ Interests
• Cognitive robotics
• Human-robot interaction
• Social robotics
• Artificial cognitive architectures
• Human-robot collaboration
• Symbolic artificial intelligence
• Machine learning
Selected publications
• Vinanzi, Samuele, et al. "Would a robot trust you? Developmental robotics model of trust and theory of mind." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 374.1771 (2019): 20180032
• Vinanzi, Samuele, et al. "The collaborative mind: intention reading and trust in human-robot interaction." Iscience 24.2 (2021): 102130.
Publications
Journal articles
Tavella, F., Manzi, F., Vinanzi, S., Di Dio, C., Massaro, D., Cangelosi, A., & Marchetti, A. (2024). . Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 11.
Vinanzi, S., & Cangelosi, A. (2024). . International Journal of Social Robotics.
Vinanzi, S., Cangelosi, A., & Goerick, C. (2021). . iScience, 24 (2).
Vinanzi, S., Patacchiola, M., Chella, A., & Cangelosi, A. (2019). . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 374 (1771).
Conference papers
Gaglio, G.F., Vinanzi, S., Cangelosi, A., & Chella, A. (2025). . In Palinko, O., Bodenhagen, L., Cabibihan, J.-.J., Fischer, K., Šabanović, S., Winkle, K., ... He, H. (Eds.) International Conference on Social Robotics, (pp. 488-497). Springer Nature:
Hellou, M., Vinanzi, S., & Cangelosi, A. (2025). . In Paolillo, A., Giusti, A., & Abbate, G. (Eds.) 17th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR2024), (pp. 197-211). Cham: Springer:
Tarakli, I., Vinanzi, S., & Di Nuovo, A. (2024). . In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 14 October 2024 - 18 October 2024 (pp. 11478-11484). IEEE:
Hellou, M., Vinanzi, S., & Cangelosi, A. (2024). . 2024 IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL).
Semeraro, F., Romeo, M., Cangelosi, A., & Vinanzi, S. (2024). Computational Trust in Robotics: Preliminary Investigations and Evidence. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 3825, 176-179.
Hellou, M., Vinanzi, S., & Cangelosi, A. (2023). . 2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 1893-1900.
Vinanzi, S., Cangelosi, A., & Goerick, C. (2020). . 2020 29th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 971-977.
Vinanzi, S., Goerick, C., & Cangelosi, A. (2019). . 2019 Joint IEEE 9th International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob), 272-277.
Lanza, F., Vinanzi, S., Seidita, V., Cangelosi, A., & Chella, A. (2019). A global workspace theory model for trust estimation in human-robot interaction. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2483, 104-112.
Giardina, M., Tramonte, S., Gentile, V., Vinanzi, S., Chella, A., Sorce, S., & Sorbello, R. (2017). . In Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS 2017). Springer Cham:
Adikari, M., O'Brien, A., Hamilton, S., Hennessey, A., Vinanzi, S., & Cangelosi, A. (2025). . In 30th Annual ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Cagliari, 24 March 2025 - 27 February 2025. Association for Computing Machinery:
Books
Barolli, L., & Terzo, O. (Eds.). (2018). Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems. Springer International Publishing.
Reports
Marchang, J., Di Nuovo, A., Elliott, C., Meese, H., Vinanzi, S., & Zecca, M. (2023). . EPSRC UK-RAS Network.
Other activities
Associate Editor for the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems