[3] In the application of these research areas, she has notably been interested in uses of companion robots to support independent living for the elderly, and in the therapy and education of children with autism.
She was a researcher with the German Society for Mathematics and Data Processing (GMD) from 1993 to 1996, and in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, before becoming a lecturer at the University of Reading in 1997.
[2] Dautenhahn is founding editor[4] and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems.
[2] She is also the editor of multiple edited volumes including Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology (1999), Socially Intelligent Agents: Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots (with Alan H. Bond, Lola Cañamero, and Bruce Edmonds, 2002), Imitation in Animals and Artifacts (with Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, 2002), and New Frontiers in Human Robot Interaction (with Joe Saunders, 2011).
Since 2006 she has also been a member of the Standing Steering Committee of the IEEE conference RO-MAN (Human and Robot Interactive Communication).