Transcultural Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Health and Social Care

Irena Papadopoulos, PhD, MA, BA, DipNEd, DipN, RN, RM, NDNCert, has been Professor for Transcultural Health and Nursing at Middlesex University for 18 years and Head of the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health, which she established, for nearly 25 years. She was the chair of her school's ethics committee, and the former chair of the research team for nursing, midwifery and allied health professions. She has been working within NHS and academic sector for over 40 years. Her main research interests are culture, compassion, diversity, health inequalities, migration and new technologies in health. She has authored/co-authored eight books, over 50 book chapters, over 100 articles, research reports and knowledge transfer tools, learning units and online modules. She was founding member of a European/Japanese universities consortium, funded by EU's HORIZON 2020 and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs, for CARESSES (Culturally Aware Robots and Environmental Sensor Systems for Elderly Support) project, the first artificially intelligent autonomous robot sensitive to people cultures.Christina Koulouglioti, PhD, is senior research fellow in the Department Research and Innovation at the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a research fellow at the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health, Middlesex University. She worked with Prof I. Papadopoulos on the CARESSES research project which developed the first set of guidelines for culturally competent artificially intelligent social robots. During the project, along with Prof Papadopoulos and other partners, they authored and published many articles related to the use of social robots in health care and the importance of culture.Chris Papadopoulos, PhD, is principal lecturer in public health and director of health research at School of Healthcare Practice, University of Bedfordshire. He teaches on a range of health post-graduate health courses, is Chair of the School of Healthcare Practice's Ethics Committee, associate editor of the Journal of Pedagogic Development, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, European Commission expert evaluator on Public Health Best Practices award scheme, Member of the Council of Deans of Health Research Leads Network and co-lead of the Institute for Health Research's Statistics and Epidemiology Group. He researches in health-related areas within the social sciences, particularly stigma, autism, mental health, informal carers/parents, older adults, culture, ethics, health technology and social robotics. He co-led the testing and evaluation phases of CARESSES project, including designing and implementing an ethically sensitive, complex and ground-breaking experimental trial of culturally competent autonomous social robots in social care settings across England.