Ph.D. students
Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare Health Science
Gaia Contu
Bio
Gaia Contu is a PhD candidate in Health Science, Technology and Management at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.
She obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Physics at University of Padua and a Master's Degree in Logic, History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Florence, with a thesis on “Communication and social perception of science: the limits of an idealised narrative and a new trust-building approach”. She spent an exchange period abroad at the University of Ghent. Dr. Contu also specialized in Science Communication with a Master Course at SISSA – International School for Advanced Studies and spent a period of internship at RAI Cultura. Currently, she carries out activities of scientific dissemination on social media and at live events, where she talks about philosophy of science and ethics of technology.
Research
Her work concentrates on the ethics and social perception of Social Robotics.
In particular, she focuses on Care and Companionship Robots: robotic systems designed to assist frail individuals, especially the elderly. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Social Construction of Technology, Care Ethics, Value-Sensitive Design and User-Centred Design, her research explores the delicate relationship between socially isolated older adults and companion robots.
Her recent work incorporates embodied cognitive science, pragmatism, and the theory of Affective Coordination to examine the risks of deception and emotional manipulation in Elderly Care Robots, integrating ethical, epistemological, empirical, and legal perspectives.
Publications
Review of the book "Compagni di Viaggio. Robot, Androidi e altre intelligenze" by Giuseppe Anerdi and Paolo Dario, published by Codice Edizioni, for "Lessico di etica pubblica" (15/02/24)
Review of the book "Forms of Argumentation and Reasoning" by Federico Boem, published by Mondadori Education/Le Monnier Università, for "The Future of Science and Ethics" (20/02/23)
Courses
Conferences:
15/02/2025 AISB (Aritifical Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour) Convention ‘25, Bristol (UK): participation in the symposium of “Cybernetics and Robotics” with the talk “Do you love grandma, robot?” Addressing deception within robotic elderly care.
01/02/2025, Keynote speaker at the national summit NEXT GENERATION AI, first national forum on AI for schools and students, organized by the Italian Ministry of Education and Merit.
23/10/2024, International Congress on Social Robotics ‘24, Odense (Denmark): participation as a speaker in the workshop “Towards novel concepts of social presence for robots”.
08/08/2024, XXV World Congress of Philosophy, Rome, Italy Title: "Do you love me, robot?”: Addressing deception in human-robot attachment in the Round Table: The paradox of Care Robots between Loneliness and Companionship
Contu, Gaia, Pellegatta, Michela (Member of the Technical Secretariat Italian Minister of University and Research), Wittum, Lorenzo (CEO of Astrazeneca, Italy), 2023. "The projects of change - The value of research in Italy". In "Frontiers Health" Italian Summit, 08-10 November 2023.
Contu, Gaia, 2023. "Science and the illusion of neutrality: revolutionary perspectives of feminist epistemologies on the construction of knowledge" at GSSI - Gran Sasso Science Institute, L'Aquila, 4 October 2023.
Contu, Gaia, 2022. "Are science and medicine really unbiased?". In the Journal Club of the San Raffaele University of Milan, 30 March 2022.
Contu, Gaia, 2022. "Turkeys and rays of light: stories of intersection between science and philosophy". In Physics and philosophy festival "Gravitas Fest" by INFN - Cagliari, 20 Septemper 2022.