Nina Merz is a research associate at the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems (FAPS) at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, where she has been contributing since 2018. She holds a B.Sc in Business Informatics (2011–2014) and a M.Sc in International Information Systems (2015–2018) from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, including a study period at Lakehead University.

Under the supervision of Prof. Freimut Bodendorf and Prof. Jörg Franke, Nina focuses her research on social, service, and humanoid robots, particularly studying acceptance and expectations of social robots across different occupational fields. She has played a key role in the FORSocialRobots project, an interdisciplinary initiative involving six research institutes and 15 companies, with a total budget of €4 million, including €2 million funded by the Bavarian Research Foundation.

Nina’s international experience includes a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Palermo, hosted by the A.S.CENT. - Centre of Advanced Studies, further enhancing her collaborative research network.

In addition to her research, she has coordinated the communication and outreach efforts at FAPS, including the creation of the institute’s LinkedIn page, now followed by over 2,000 professionals.

Selected Publications

Nina Merz has contributed to numerous high-impact publications in the field of robotics and human-robot interaction, including:
1. Let Me Entertain You – A Quantitative Study on the Acceptance of Consumer Entertainment Robots (ISR Europe 2022)
2. Are we prepared for the Rise of Service Robots? - A Review on Acceptance Measurement (The Human Side of Service Engineering, 2022)
3. Science-Fiction Movies as an Indicator for User Acceptance of Robots in a Non-Industrial Environment (Computers and People Research Conference, 2020)
4. A Modular Interface for Controlling Interactive Behaviors of a Humanoid Robot for Socio-Emotional Skills Training (IEEE RO-MAN 2022, Naples, Italy)
5. Towards Useful Social Capabilities for Robots in Healthcare (ISMT 2024)
6. A Concept of Emotion-Driven Human-Robot Interaction for Nursing Care Scenarios (ISMT 2024)
7. Making Social Robots Adaptable and Partially Educable via a Marketplace for Interaction Characters (Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2025)

Through her work, Nina Merz has advanced understanding of social and service robots, particularly their role in healthcare, human-computer interaction, and occupational environments, contributing both to theoretical research and applied technology development.