Laura Boccanfuso
Founder & CEO at Van Robotics
Columbia, South Carolina, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolLaura Boccanfuso is the founder and CEO of Vän Robotics, bringing 11 years of experience translating research-grade social robotics and AI into classroom-ready robot tutors that personalize K–8 learning. She combines a PhD in Computer Science (Socially Assistive Robotics) and a Yale postdoc studying human-robot interaction to design machines that adapt to individual student needs via sensing and machine learning. Her work spans academia and entrepreneurship, moving innovations from Yale labs into a commercial product aimed at measurable academic outcomes. Based in Columbia, SC, she builds interdisciplinary teams bridging education, robotics, and data science to tackle persistent learning gaps. Notably, she has hands-on experience building custom robots and novel interaction paradigms for children with social and communicative challenges, informing Vän’s empathetic design.
11 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) at George Mason University Department of CommunicationMaster of Science (M.Sc.), Computer Science, Master of Science (M.Sc.), Computer Science at Bowling Green State UniversityPostDoc, Social Robotics, PostDoc, Social Robotics at Yale UniversityPhD, Computer Science and Engineering, PhD, Computer Science and Engineering at University of South Carolina
english and spanish
Github Skills (7)
science10
computer-science10
react10
ranking10
ros7
python4
ffmpeg4
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
jokane/bang
May 2017 - Aug 2024
Contributions:1 PR, 9 pushes, 1 branch in 7 years 4 months
jokane/cyflwyniad
Jan 2017 - Jun 2022
Contributions:3 pushes, 1 branch in 5 years 5 months
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