Dr. Shirley Elprama

In her research, Shirley Elprama employs a user-centered approach, aiming to influence the development of technology based on users’ needs, whether they are factory workers, surgeons, older adults, children, physiotherapists, or other types of users. She has experience with a variety of (living lab) methods and tools, including but not limited to interviews and focus groups, co-creation, observation, surveys, usability testing, paper prototyping, and scenarios. While Shirley primarily focuses on robots and occupational exoskeletons, she is interested in all kinds of technology. She thrives in multidisciplinary teams.

Shirley Elprama completed her PhD on the acceptance of occupational exoskeletons at work in 2024. Currently, she works at SMIT as a senior and post-doctoral researcher on topics related to trustworthy AI and robotics. Shirley joined SMIT in 2011 with a master's in Human Technology Interaction from Eindhoven University of Technology. She prefers studying people in the environments where they use (or do not use) technology, such as factories, operating theatres, and nursing homes.

Shirley worked on different EU and national research projects, such as the EU project SOPHIA where she investigated the acceptance of workers of collaborative robots and exoskeletons. In COLLWORK, she collaborated with imec and FlandersMake colleagues to show companies the potential of collaborative robots. Other projects that I have worked on include the imec.icon RoboCure project (using robots for diabetes education and children; 2017 – 2019) and the imec.icon WONDER project (using robots for older adults with dementia; 2015 – 2017). In ClaXon (2014 – 2016), she researched collaborative robots in manufacturing and conducted field research at Audi Brussels, such as interviewing workers about their attititudes towards using robots and with this involving these workers in shaping the technology.