Dr. Francisco Cruz Naranjo
Group Leader
Autonomous Agents and Robotics Research Group
UNSW Sydney, Australia

Address
School of Computer Science and Engineering
Ainsworth Building (J17) - Room 510J
Kensington Campus
UNSW Sydney
NSW 2052, Australia

Contact
Phone: +61 2 9348 0597
Email: f.cruz@unsw.edu.au

Research interests

• Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Cognitive and Developmental Robotic, Bioinspired Models, Explainable Artificial Intelligence
• Reinforcement Learning, Contextual Affordances, Dynamic Models, Grey Box Neural Models
• Interactive Reinforcement Learning, Explainable Reinforcement Learning, Human-Robot Interaction, Multimodal Integration

Useful links

• Personal webpage
• UNSW webpage
• Google Scholar profile
• LinkedIn profile
• Web of Science profile
• Scopus profile
• OrcID profile

Short bio: I received a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's degree in computer engineering from the University of Santiago, Chile, in 2004 and 2006, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2017, working in developmental robotics focused on interactive reinforcement learning.

In 2015, I was a Visiting Researcher within the Emergent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University and in 2018, a Visiting Researcher within the Polytechnic School, University of Pernambuco, Brazil. I joined UNSW in 2022 as a Lecturer in Cognitive Robotics. My current research interests include reinforcement learning, explainable artificial intelligence, human-robot interaction, artificial neural networks, and psychologically and bio-inspired models.

Selected Publications	Web
Francisco Cruz, Sven Magg, Yukie Nagai, and Stefan Wermter. "Improving interactive reinforcement learning: What makes a good teacher?". Connection Science, Vol. 30, Nr. 3, pp. 306-325, March 2018.
Francisco Cruz, Sven Magg, Cornelius Weber, and Stefan Wermter. "Training Agents with Interactive Reinforcement Learning and Contextual Affordances". IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS), Vol. 8, Nr. 4, pp. 271-284, December 2016.
Francisco Cruz, German I. Parisi, Johannes Twiefel, and Stefan Wermter. "Multi-modal Integration of Dynamic Audiovisual Patterns for an Interactive Reinforcement Learning Scenario". In Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 759-766, Daejeon, Korea, 2016.