Dr. Fitter is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University. Her past degrees include a B.S. and B.A. in mechanical engineering and Spanish from the University of Cincinnati and an M.S.E. and Ph.D. in robotics and mechanical engineering and applied mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her doctoral work in the GRASP Laboratory’s Haptics Group and was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the University of Southern California Interaction Lab from 2017 to 2018. Her past experiences in industry include fluid modeling and simulation for the Procter & Gamble Oral Care Division and wearable health monitoring device development and evaluation for Microsoft Research. As a member of the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute, Dr. Fitter aims to equip robots with the ability to engage and empower people in interactions from playful high-fives to challenging physical therapy routines.

Research Interests

Dr. Fitter’s research interests include physical human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, haptics, robots in education, and robotic entertainers. 

Selected Publications

• Naomi T. Fitter, Rebecca Funke, José Carlos Pulido, Weiyang Deng, Marcelo R. Rosales, Nina S. Bradley, Barbara Sargent, Beth A. Smith, and Maja J. Matarić. Socially assistive infant-robot interaction: Using robots to encourage infant leg-motion training. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (RAM), June 2019.

• Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker. How does it feel to clap hands with a robot? International Journal of Social Robotics (SORO), 1-15, April 2019.
• Naomi T. Fitter and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker. Teaching a robot bimanual hand-clapping games via wrist-worn IMUs. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5(85): 1–17, July 2018.