I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Human-Robot Interaction Lab at Kyoto University. In October 2026, I will join the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as a postdoctoral fellow.

My research lies at the intersection of human–robot interaction, social robotics, and embodied AI. My doctoral research focused on developing expressive manipulation strategies to improve the transparency, legibility, and naturalness of robot behavior in human-shared environments. My postdoctoral research investigates how robots can infer and respond to human intentions by leveraging large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs), while drawing on insights from psychology to enable socially appropriate behavior in human–robot interaction.

I welcome opportunities for research collaboration on these topics and in related areas, as well as opportunities to contribute through peer review, program committee service, and editorial activities. Please feel free to get in touch via email.

Selected Publications & Manuscripts

HRI ’27

Manuscript under review

First and corresponding author

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)

^* Corresponding author

Academic Service

Organizing

Workshop Organizer

HRI ’26 Multi-Agentic Systems in HRI (MAgicS-HRI): Bridging Design and Real-World Challenges for End Users

Special Session Organizer

ICIRA ’26 MUSE: Multimodal Human Motion Understanding for Embodied and Interactive Intelligence

Reviewing

THRI Distinguished Reviewer Board
Journals: RA-L; THRI; IMWUT
Conferences: HRI (2025–27); CHI (2023); DIS (2025–26); IDC (2025–26); ISS (2026); INTERACT (2025); WHC (2025); AutoUI (2026); RO-MAN (2024); HAI (2024, 2026)

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