We are thrilled to welcome Baisong Liu and Agnes Axelsson to the SocialMinds team! Starting in September 2026, both will join us as post-doctoral researchers for a period of three years, funded through the ComFuturo iAGE scheme.

ComFuturo is a highly competitive programme run by Fundación General CSIC that supports three-year post-doctoral fellowships at CSIC. Its current edition, iAGE, is dedicated to addressing the challenge of an ageing society, with a particular emphasis on digital and technological solutions.

Both of their projects share the global goal of using AI and robotics to address the challenges of an ageing society:

• Baisong Liu will focus on interaction design, exploring how social robots can support and engage older adults in their daily lives.
• Agnes Axelsson will focus on verbal understanding, developing systems that allow robots to truly follow and adapt to what people say.

Baisong is currently in the final stage of his PhD at TU Eindhoven, where his work on persuasive social robots for healthcare and human-centered design methods for robotic applications has already seen him visiting the lab earlier this year. Agnes comes to us from TU Delft, where she has been working on adaptive robot presenters and conversational interaction.

A warm welcome to both of them!