Project Fellow
Email: nvf4@cornell.edu

Natalie Victoria Friedman is an artist and human-robot interaction researcher and designer. She focuses on designing clothes for robots in efforts to research human-robot interaction. She propose that robot clothing should avoid mere mimicry of human apparel, and instead be motivated by what robots need. Clothes can make a robot dynamic, personalized, and adaptable, helping robots to be useful in a wider array of contexts, or to better adapt or function in the contexts they are already in. So far, she has designed clothing for an agricultural robot and healthcare robot, written a paper that contributes a framework for thinking about what robots could need from clothes, and ran multiple workshops (ITP camp and HRI Conference) teaching people how to design clothign for robots.

Her art practice currently includes using watercolors for portraits, adding crocheted patches and beading into totes, learning how to sew, and scrapbooking. She intends to collaborate with fashion designers soon to design a line of clothing for a robot fashion show.