Activated in 2008, Hanson Robotics developed Alice (also known as ‘Eva’) for MIRALab at the University of Geneva. There she serves cognitive robotics research as part of the INDIGO consortium, which we helped found. With her emotionally expressive face — like other Hanson humanoids, her Frubber ™ skin and underlying servo motors approximate a wide range of human-like facial expressions — she is able to push the limits of humanoid development. Look closely at the researchers’ videos we’ve included below and you’ll see that her cheeks, mouth, eyes and eyebrows move fluidly and evenly, communicating sadness, anger, shock, pleasure and other human reactions. This might explain how Alice (Eva) ended up serving a distinctly different purpose: as an actress in a theatrical production. Find out more about her February 2017 acting debut and continuing performance at the Roten Fabrik theatre in Zurich