Xiang Pan

Xiang Pan

Ph.D., Kyoto University

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at Kyoto University. My research lies at the intersection of human–robot interaction and embodied AI. My previous work has focused on developing expressive manipulation strategies to enhance the transparency, legibility, and naturalness of robot behavior in human-shared environments.

Currently, I investigate how robots can infer and respond to human intentions by leveraging large language models (LLMs) and vision language models (VLMs), informed by insights from psychology to enable socially appropriate behavior in human–robot interaction.

Selected Publications

HRI ’26

Communicating Object Relations through Robot Gestures [PDF]

Xiang Pan*, Malcolm Doering, Takayuki Kanda

Note: CORE A*, 23.2% acceptance rate (129/557)

HRI ’25

Communicating Physical Properties through Robot Object Manipulation [PDF]

Xiang Pan*, Malcolm Doering, Stela H. Seo, Takayuki Kanda

Note: CORE A*, 25% acceptance rate (100/400)

HRI ’24

What Is Your Other Hand Doing, Robot? A Model of Behavior for Shopkeeper Robot's Idle Hand [PDF]

Xiang Pan*, Malcolm Doering, Takayuki Kanda

Note: CORE A*, 24.7% acceptance rate (87/352)

Academic Service

Organization

MUSE: Multimodal Human Motion Understanding for Embodied and Interactive Intelligence

Special Session Organizer · ICIRA 2026

Reviewing

  • Journals: RA-L, THRI, IMWUT
  • Conferences: HRI (2025–26); CHI (2023); DIS (2025–26); IDC (2025–26); ISS (2026); INTERACT (2025); WHC (2025); AutoUI (2026); RO-MAN (2024); HAI (2024, 2026)

Volunteering

  • IROS 2022 — Student Volunteer

Selected Awards

  • Excellent Postgraduate Student Award, Zhejiang University, 2020
  • Outstanding Graduate Leader Award, Zhejiang University, 2018
  • Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Anhui Province, 2017
  • Youth May Fourth Medal, Anhui University of Technology, 2017 (highest undergraduate honor; 10 recipients university-wide)

Education

  • Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
    Ph.D. in Social Informatics (Apr 2022 – Jan 2026)
    Supervisor: Prof. Takayuki Kanda

  • Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
    M.S. in Instrument and Meter Engineering (Sept 2017 – Jun 2020)
    Supervisor: Prof. Hong Zhou

  • Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, China
    B.S. in Electronic and Information Engineering (Sept 2013 – Jul 2017)
    Supervisor: Prof. Bing Wang