Daniel Preciado Vanegas

Dr. Daniel Preciado Vanegas is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, VU Amsterdam, affiliated with both the Department of Communication Science and the Network Institute. He leads research on social robots through the Media Psychology group, focusing on their psychological and physiological impacts in healthcare and educational contexts.

• PhD in Cognitive Psychology (VU Amsterdam)
• Specializes in social robots' effects on loneliness reduction and health improvement
• Develops multimodal interaction frameworks for human-robot teaching
• Active in child-robot interaction for pain management and language learning

His research combines self-report, EEG, eye-tracking, and hormonal measures to assess social robot efficacy. Current projects include the Deloitte collaboration on Alice, a social robot for elderly care, and experimental studies on robot-assisted language acquisition in migrant children.

Recent publications highlight his work on dog-training-inspired robot programming and the quantification of social robots' effects through mixed-methods paradigms. The academic community recognizes his contributions through multiple peer-reviewed publications and competitive research funding.

• Computable Award 2021
• Network Institute Competitive Research Funding (2025)

He teaches courses on media psychology, robot interaction, and digital communication challenges while collaborating with technologists and healthcare professionals to advance hybrid human-AI systems. His ongoing work explores the interplay between attentional mechanisms and social technology adoption.