I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, working with Prof. Xiaojuan Ma.

I received my Ph.D. in Social Informatics at Kyoto University under the supervision of Prof. Takayuki Kanda, and continued there as a postdoctoral researcher in the Human-Robot Interaction Lab. I hold an M.S. in Instrument and Meter Engineering from Zhejiang University and a B.S. in Electronic and Information Engineering from Anhui University of Technology, where I was supervised by Prof. Hong Zhou and Prof. Bing Wang, respectively.

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 (2026) — Multi-Agentic Systems in HRI (MAgicS-HRI): Bridging Design and Real-World Challenges for End Users
Special Session Organizer: ICIRA (2026) — MUSE: Multimodal Human Motion Understanding for Embodied and Interactive Intelligence

Reviewing

Distinguished Reviewer Board: ACM THRI
Journals: IEEE RA-L; ACM THRI; ACM IMWUT
Conferences: HRI (2025–27); CHI (2023, 2027); 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 Award, Anhui Province, 2017
Youth May Fourth Medal, Anhui University of Technology, 2017 (highest undergraduate honor; 10 recipients university-wide)