Di Fu

Dr. Di Fu is a Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Surrey's Department of Psychology, part of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. She leads the Digital Intelligence for Future Users (DIFU) Lab and co-leads the MSc Game Design and Digital Innovation program. Her roles include Social Media Lead for the School of Psychology and Director of the DIFU Lab. She holds a PhD and specializes in cognitive neuroscience (fMRI/EEG), cognitive simulation, human-robot interaction, crossmodal learning, and social attention mechanisms.

Her research examines human-robot social interaction, particularly how robots mirroring social cues (e.g., affect and movement) influence human perception. Notably, her studies compare robotic platforms like iCub and Pepper, revealing that iCub is perceived as more human-like in affective mirroring. She also investigates control methods, finding vision-based systems outperform IMU-based ones in movement tasks.

Her work spans across disciplines, blending neuroscience with robotics and AI ethics. Recent trends in her publications focus on AI applications in dementia care, pain empathy, and human-AI collaboration. She has advised PhD and MSc students on topics like social attention mechanisms and multimodal emotion recognition.

Dr. Fu collaborates across institutions and has contributed to open-source tools like Wrapyfi for robotics integration. Her lab explores future user-centric technologies, emphasizing ethical AI design and human-centered interactions.