Marcel Heerink

Marcel Heerink (1961) is an internationally renowned academic researcher from the Netherlands. He specializes in using social robots in therapy and education for people with special needs, like children with autism, people with dementia and (long term) hospitalized children. The surprising experiences and insights he gained with this are what urged him to write A Compassionate Guide For Social Robots.

Marcel had an early career in psycholinguistics, advertising, and language training before he started research on social robots. He obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam on a study of acceptance of social robots by older adults and subsequently worked on international projects at universities in The Netherlands and Spain. He loves to travel.

His interests include not only the psychological and social aspects of human-robot interaction, but also philosophical considerations and emerging ethical issues. His work includes, besides academic publications, popular books and articles, both in Dutch and in English.