When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Dance Psychotherapy, Street Dance Mental Health Research, Social & Health Robotics
18 JULY / 11:00 - 11:30 aM UK TIME
A casual conversation with:
Anastasia Moraiti
Dance/Movement Psychotherapist, MA, RDMP
MA Dance/ Movement Psychotherapy, University of Derby, U.K.
BSc Clinical/ Social Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Rachel Raymond
Doctoral Researcher (PhD Student), Loughborough University
I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk about my ongoing and future PhD research, which ultimately aims to design and trial a street dance-based intervention to improve mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in young adults and students. To my knowledge, this could be the first. My first study, which I’m currently working on, aims to explore the differences between street-dancers and non-dancers across various measures of psychosocial wellbeing and related concepts via an anonymous online survey. These quantitative results alongside qualitative interviews with both students and street dancers, will help inform a street dance intervention whilst encompassing raw hip hop culture.
Shruti Shreya
Research Assistant - Centre of Robotics Research (CoRe) at King’s College London | Cyberpsychologist
It is an honour to share this unique platform with such accomplished people, to talk about our overlapping research interests, mine being Human Factors Engineering for mental health and psychosocial needs of vulnerable populations using behavioural studies dedicated towards efficacious design and development of Robotic Assistive tech. As a Cyberpsychologist, I try to study the relationships between humans and digital technologies, as well as various phenomena relating to AI & the Internet, which I have now begun translating towards interaction studies involving Socially Assistive Robots using psychological paradigms. My other interests include combining eXtended-Reality (XR) with Robotics and leveraging AI & Robotics for Neurodivergence-inclusivity. As an early-career researcher at KCL, I am currently developing a project for the co-design of a social robot catering to the mental well-being of children. In short, I am a budding RoboPsychologist.
I am also an avid fan of sci-fi, art & fashion, and a hobby dancer, always enthusiastic about exploring different creative expressions or finding unique ways to combine them with technology for mental health benefits.
An additional special mention to work being done by Guy Laban, postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Computer Science & Technology of the University of Cambridge and member of the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory (AFAR) under the supervision of Prof. Hatice Gunes.
https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/gl538
and his thesis: “Social Robots as Communication Partners to Support Emotional Well-Being“ (2023) https://theses.gla.ac.uk/83718/4/2023LabanPhD.pdf