Nikolaos Mavridis (born April 28, 1973) is the founder and director of the Interactive Robots and Media Lab (IRML), and a PhD graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology He is also an assistant professor of research at the Computer Science department, New York University Poly, and adjunct researcher at NCSR Demokritos. Before his PhD, he was awarded an M.Sc. from the University of California Los Angeles, and a M. Eng. (summa cum laude) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. His research interests include human–robot interaction, and especially verbal and non-verbal communication with robots, artificial intelligence, machine perception, and cognitive systems. Mavridis and his work at the Interactive Robots and Media Lab received coverage from media of more than 20 countries, such as the BBC, Agence France-Presse (AFP), The National (Abu Dhabi), Al Jazeera TV etc. Furthermore, Mavridis has been a TEDx Speaker twice, in TEDx Al Ain and TEDx Athens. Apart from his acade