My research focuses on developing adaptive, ethical robotic systems that provide personalized support for individuals with cognitive impairments (such as PwD and PwMCI).
Autonomous Robotic Systems for Longitudinal Clinical Interventions
I have worked on designing, developing, and evaluating technical frameworks for transitioning clinical health interventions into reliable, long-term robotic platforms. The EVA Robot successfully managed complex conversations in a longitudinal study, resulting in high user engagement and symptom reduction for dementia patients. Also, the CARMEN Robot is a robotic system architecture for delivering personalized cognitive training directly in a user's home.
Adaptive AI Architectures for Trustworthy Human-Robot Teaming
I'm designing AI models that adapts continuously to a user's history and current state, ensuring interactions are both effective and trustworthy. I use diverse AI approaches to adapt robot responses, ensuring they are factual, safe, and deeply personalized. For real-time responsiveness, I'm exploring multimodal sensor fusion to infer user engagement, allowing the robot to dynamically adjust its conversation or task difficulty instantly.
Accessible Robot Programming for Inclusive Co-creation
This research focuses on empowering users as active co-creators of their technology. I created the PODER System, an End-User Programming tool that allows people with cognitive impairments to use a simple visual interface to program their robot's behaviors themselves. This work explores a novel approach for inclusive design, ensuring the technology reflects the users's preferences and fosters a vital sense of control.
Postdoc and CSE research fellow in Healthcare Robotics Lab, Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. My research focuses on designing ML-based adaptive models to personal robots. Application area is neurorehablitation to support people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment
Robotics
Machine Learning
Human-Robot Interaction
Human-Centered AI
Research Assistant
CICESE
Ensenada, Baja California, MX
May 2020 - Dec 2020
I designed, implemented, and tested guardianCOVID and cuida2COVID, platforms to support care in geriatric residences during the COVID-19 pandemic. I collaborated with the AI Mexican consortium and Instituto Nacional de Geriatría, Mexico (INGER).
Human-Robot Interaction
Ubicomp
User-centered design
Instructor of Record
NovaUniversitas
Oaxaca, MX
2011 - 2015
Instructor of record in the Informatics Bachelor’s program. Courses: Algorithms, artificial intelligence, web design (front-end), web development (back-end), software engineering, object-oriented programming
Journal Papers (Journal Citations Report) and Book Chapters
D. Cruz-Sandoval, A. Kubota, C. Guan, S. Kim, and L. Riek. “Robot characters: Dynamic personalities for cognitively assistive robots,” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 2025.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, M. Tentori, and J. Favela, “A Framework to Design Engaging Interactions in Socially Assistive Robots to Mitigate Dementia-Related Symptoms,” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 2024.
J. Favela, D. Cruz-Sandoval, M. M. da Rocha, and D. C. Muchaluat-Saade, “Social Robots for Healthcare and Education in Latin America,” Communications of the ACM, 2024.
M. Marques da Rocha, D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, and D. C. Muchaluat-Saade, “Design and usability evaluation of the EvaSIM simulator for a socially assistive robot,” Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2024.
M. Astorga, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “A social robot to assist in addressing disruptive eating behaviors by people with dementia,” Robotics, 2023.
M. D. Rodríguez, J. Beltrán, M. Valenzuela-Beltrán, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “Assisting older adults with medication reminders through an audio-based activity recognition system,” Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2021.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, I. H. Lopez-Nava, and A. Morales, “Adoption of wearable devices by persons with dementia: lessons from a non-pharmacological intervention enabled by a social robot,” IoT in Healthcare and Ambient Assisted Living, 2021.
J. Favela, D. Cruz-Sandoval, A. Morales-Tellez, and I. H. Lopez-Nava, “Monitoring behavioral symptoms of dementia using activity trackers,” Journal of biomedical informatics, 2020.
D. Cruz-Sandoval and J. Favela, “A conversational robot to conduct therapeutic interventions for dementia,” IEEE Pervasive Computing, 2019.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, Beltran-Marquez J, Garcia-Constantino M, Gonzalez-Jasso LA, Favela J, Lopez-Nava IH, Cleland I, Ennis A, Hernandez-Cruz N, Rafferty J, Synnott J., “Semi-automated data labeling for activity recognition in pervasive healthcare,” Sensors, 2019.
D. Cruz-Sandoval and J. Favela, “Incorporating conversational strategies in a social robot to interact with people with dementia,” Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders, 2019.
Refereed Conference Papers
D. Cruz-Sandoval, M. Murakami, A. Kubota, and L. D. Riek, “PODER: A Robot Programming Framework to Further Inclusion of People with Mild Cognitive Impairment in HRI Research,” in Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '25), 2025. [Acceptance rate: 25%]
A. Bouzida, A. Kubota, D. Cruz-Sandoval , E. W. Twamley, and L. D. Riek, “CARMEN: A Cognitively Assistive Robot for Personalized Neurorehabilitation at Home,” in Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2024. [Acceptance rate: 24%]
Best Paper Honorable Mention
S. Jayaraman, D. Cruz-Sandoval, A. Kubota, and L. D. Riek, “What a healthcare worker wants, what a disabled person needs: Exploring stakeholder design tensions in assistive robotics,” in HRI 2024 Workshop on Assistive Applications, Accessibility, and Disability Ethics (A3DE), 2024.
A. Kubota, R. Pei, E. Sun, D. Cruz-Sandoval, S. Kim, and L. D. Riek, “Get smart: Collaborative goal setting with cognitively assistive robots,” in Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2023. [Acceptance rate: 25%]
J. Favela, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and M. O. Parra, “Conversational Agents for Dementia using Large Language Models,” in 2023 Mexican International Conference on Computer Science (ENC), IEEE, 2023.
A. Kubota, D. Cruz-Sandoval, S. Kim, E. W. Twamley, and L. D. Riek, “Cognitively assistive robots at home: Hri design patterns for translational science,” in 2022 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), IEEE, 2022. [Acceptance rate: 25%]
Best Paper Honorable Mention
M. M. da Rocha, D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, and D. C. Muchaluat-Saade, “An Open-Source Socially Assistive Robot for Multisensory Healthcare Therapies,” in Workshop on Multisensory Experiences (SensoryX), SBC, 2022.
M. M. da Rocha, D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, and D. C. Muchaluat-Saade, “Evasim: a software simulator for the eva open-source robotics platform,” in 2022 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), IEEE, 2022.
L. Villa, R. Hervás, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “Design and evaluation of proactive behavior in conversational assistants: approach with the eva companion robot,” in International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence, 2022.
L. Villa, R. Hervás, C. C. Dobrescu, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “Incorporating affective proactive behavior to a social companion robot for community dwelling older adults,” in International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2022.
M. Astorga, J. Favela, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and L. D. Riek, “A social robot to support people with dementia at mealtimes: Design, implementation and preliminary evaluation,” Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 2022.
A. Kubota, D. Cruz-Sandoval, S. Kim, E. W. Twamley, and L. D. Riek, “Cognitively Assistive Robots at Home: Translating Clinical Interventions to Robots,” Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 2022.
M. Rocha, P. Valentim, F. Barreto, A. Mitjans, D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, and Muchaluat-Saade D. C. ”Towards Enhancing the Multimodal Interaction of a Social Robot to Assist Children with Autism in Emotion Regulation”. In Proceedings of the 15th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2022
D. Cruz-Sandoval, A. Morales-Tellez, E. B. Sandoval, and J. Favela, “A social robot as therapy facilitator in interventions to deal with dementia-related behavioral symptoms,” in Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction, 2020. [Acceptance rate: 23.6%]
E. B. Sandoval, J. Shi, D. Cruz-Sandoval, B. Li, M. Cappuccio, and S. Rosenbaum, “A prototype of a robot memory game: Exploring the technical limitations of human-robot interaction in a playful context,” in Companion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2021.
E. B. Sandoval, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “Functional Aesthetic Design of Therapy robots: Towards Strong Concepts for HRI.,” in First international workshop on Designerly HRI Knowledge, RO-MAN, 2020.
M. Garcia-Constantino et al., “Semi-automated Annotation of Audible Home Activities,” in 2019 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops), IEEE, 2019.
N. Hernandez-Cruz, et al., “Study design of an environmental smart microphone system to detect anxiety in patients with dementia,” in Proceedings of the 13th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2019.
A. Acosta-Mitjans, D. Cruz-Sandoval, R. Hervas, E. Johnson, C. Nugent, and J. Favela, “Affective embodied agents and their effect on decision making,” in Proceedings, MDPI, 2019.
A. Morales, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. Favela, “Activity monitoring of people with dementia in a cognitive stimulation intervention,” in Proceedings, MDPI, 2019.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, and E. B. Sandoval, “Strategies to facilitate the acceptance of a social robot by people with dementia,” in Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2018.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, C. I. Penaloza, J. Favela, and A. P. Castro-Coronel, “Towards social robots that support exercise therapies for persons with dementia,” in Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Joint Conference and 2018 International Symposium on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Wearable Computers, 2018.
D. Cruz-Sandoval, J. Favela, M. Parra, and N. Hernandez, “Towards an adaptive conversational robot using biosignals,” in Proceedings of the 7th Mexican Conference on Human- Computer Interaction, 2018.
Best Paper Award
D. Cruz-Sandoval, F. Eyssel, J. Favela, and E. B. Sandoval, “Towards a conversational corpus for human-robot conversations,” in Proceedings of the Companion of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2017.
D. Cruz-Sandoval and J. Favela, “Semi-autonomous conversational robot to deal with problematic behaviors from people with dementia,” in Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence: 11th International Conference, UCAmI, 2017.
D. Cruz-Sandoval and J. Favela, “Co-designing ambient-assisted interventions using digital interlocutors for people with dementia,” in Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, 2017.
D. Cruz-Sandoval and J. Favela, “Human-robot interaction to deal with problematic behaviors from people with dementia,” in Proceedings of the 10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2016.
I. Garcia, C. Pacheco, D. Cruz-Sandoval, and J. A. Calvo-Manzano, “Implementing the modeling-based approach for supporting the software process assessment in SPI initiatives inside a small software company,” in Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications, 2011
Dagoberto Cruz-Sandoval
dcruzsandoval@ucsd.edu
johndoe
dago-cruz-sandoval
johndoe.dev
Experience
Postdoctoral Scholar/Research CSE Fellow
@University of California, San Diego
Feb 2021 - Present
Postdoc and CSE research fellow in Healthcare Robotics Lab, Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. My research focuses on designing ML-based adaptive models to personal robots. Application area is neurorehablitation to support people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment
Skills:
Robotics, Machine Learning, Human-Robot Interaction, Human-Centered AI
Research Assistant
@CICESE
May 2020 - Dec 2020
I designed, implemented, and tested guardianCOVID and cuida2COVID, platforms to support care in geriatric residences during the COVID-19 pandemic. I collaborated with the AI Mexican consortium and Instituto Nacional de Geriatría, Mexico (INGER).
Instructor of record in the Informatics Bachelor’s program. Courses: Algorithms, artificial intelligence, web design (front-end), web development (back-end), software engineering, object-oriented programming
Advisor: Prof. Jesús Favela Thesis: Conversational robots to support non-pharmacological interventions for people with dementia.
Master of Science, Computer Science
UTM
July 2011
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science and Engineering
UTM
July 2009
Projects
Autonomous Robotic Systems for Longitudinal Clinical Interventions
I have worked on designing, developing, and evaluating technical frameworks for transitioning clinical health interventions into reliable, long-term robotic platforms. The EVA Robot successfully managed complex conversations in a longitudinal study, resulting in high user engagement and symptom reduction for dementia patients. Also, the CARMEN Robot is a robotic system architecture for delivering personalized cognitive training directly in a user's home.
Skills:
Adaptive AI Architectures for Trustworthy Human-Robot Teaming
I'm designing AI models that adapts continuously to a user's history and current state, ensuring interactions are both effective and trustworthy. I use diverse AI approaches to adapt robot responses, ensuring they are factual, safe, and deeply personalized. For real-time responsiveness, I'm exploring multimodal sensor fusion to infer user engagement, allowing the robot to dynamically adjust its conversation or task difficulty instantly.
Skills:
Accessible Robot Programming for Inclusive Co-creation
This research focuses on empowering users as active co-creators of their technology. I created the PODER System, an End-User Programming tool that allows people with cognitive impairments to use a simple visual interface to program their robot's behaviors themselves. This work explores a novel approach for inclusive design, ensuring the technology reflects the users's preferences and fosters a vital sense of control.
