As Starship robots deliver food to hungry Boilermakers across Purdue University\u2019s West Lafayette campus, their presence is often welcomed like that of a neighborhood pet \u2014 students are often seen helping them when they get stuck or smiling and moving out of their way when they meet them on the sidewalk. When Alei (Aileen) Fan, associate professor in the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) and an expert in service innovation and experience design, helped one along its way one day, she was met with a low-tone, male voice saying, \u201cThank you.\u201d This contradicted the \u201ccute\u201d vision Fan had in her mind of the robots being like her dog at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[251,8,19],"tags":[1706,174,1705,263,1435,1707,240,560,556,1295,592],"class_list":["post-10658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graduate-students","category-hospitality-and-tourism-management","category-research","tag-29th-annual-graduate-education-and-graduate-student-research-conference-in-hospitality-and-tourism","tag-alei-fan","tag-chang-evita-ma","tag-college-of-health-and-human-sciences","tag-experience-design","tag-purdue-graduate-student-government","tag-purdue-university","tag-robots","tag-service-innovation","tag-starship-robots","tag-white-lodging-j-w-marriott-jr-school-of-hospitality-and-tourism-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n