Meet the Experts
Meet the faculty members driving CMU鈥檚 world-leading research in robotics.
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CMU experts in robotics are available for media opportunities.
Howie Choset
Kavcic-Moura Professor of Computer Science in Robotics, School of Computer Science
Choset's research reduces complicated high-dimensional problems found in robotics to low-dimensional simpler ones.
Expertise: Entrepreneurship, Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing, Space Robots and Systems, Manufacturing, Mechanical Systems, Computer Science, Robotics and Autonomous Vehicles, Applied Mathematics, Field and Service Robotics, Educational Robotics, Medical Robotics, Infrastructure Robotics, Operations Research
Martial Hebert
University Professor and Dean, School of Computer Science
Hebert performed research on interpreting 3D data from range sensors for obstacle detection and object recognition.
Expertise: Robotics, Autonomous Systems, Robotics and Autonomous Vehicles, Computer Vision, Interpretation of Perception Data
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Michael Kaess
Associate Professor, Founder of the Robot Perception Lab, School of Computer Science
Kaess's research focuses on 3D mapping and localization using information from any available sensor, including vision, laser, inertial, GPS and sonar (underwater). To enable online operations, Kaess's research also explores novel algorithms for efficient and robust inference at the intersection of linear algebra and probabilistic graphical models.
Expertise: Robotics Foundations, Field and Service Robotics, Robot Navigation, Multi-Robot Systems, Autonomous Robots, Robot Motion Planning, Aerial Robotics, Underwater Robotics
George A. Kantor
Research Professor, Associate Director of Education, School of Computer Science
Kantor has been developing robotic technologies to address problems in agriculture and scientific exploration for 15 years.
Expertise: Underwater Robotics, Robotics in Agriculture and Forestry, Field and Service Robotics, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Mining Robotics
Changliu Liu
Associate Professor, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science聽
Liu works to build intelligent and autonomous robots that think, behave and interact with the world in the way that human beings do, so that they can better serve, assist and collaborate with people in their daily lives across work, home and leisure.
Expertise: Multi-Agent Systems, Robotics Foundations, Human-Robot Interaction, Motion Planning, Optimization
Carmel Majidi
Clarence H. Adamson Professor, College of Engineering
Majidi鈥檚 mission is to discover materials and methods that allow robots and machines to behave like soft biological organisms.
Expertise: Soft Robotics, Medical Device Manufacturing, Wearable Robotics, Medical Devices, Advanced Manufacturing, Devices and Material Manipulation, Robotics, Cybersecurity and Privacy, Micro/Nanoengineering
Jean Oh
Associate Research Professor, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Oh's research focuses on building Creative Physical AI technologies that remind us of "what makes us human," promoting human values such as safety, creativity and compassion across diverse domains including self-driving vehicles, safe aviation and arts.
Expertise: Field and Service Robotics, Human Robot Collaboration, Robotics Foundations, Social Robots, Motion, Human-Centered Robotics, AI Reasoning for Robotics
Nancy Pollard
Professor, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Pollard is interested in understanding physical interaction with the environment 鈥� how do we select and apply exactly the right forces to maneuver bulky and heavy objects, scramble over large rocks using both hands and feet, or use hand held tools.
Expertise: Manipulation and Interfaces, Robot Structures, Soft Robotics, Motion for Manipulation Tasks, Robot Hands
Raj Rajkumar
George Westinghouse Professor, College of Engineering
Rajkumar researches ways to safely bring vehicles to life with information technology.
Expertise: Automotive, Information Technology and Services, Computer Networking, Computer Hardware, Computer Software
Sebastian Scherer
Associate Research Professor, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Scherer has made fundamental contributions to this new area of 鈥渞esilient robotics鈥� to answer those key research questions for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), perception and planning, by demonstrating pioneering results, as well as by evaluating the resilience in the context of applications such as subterranean exploration, search and rescue, triage, wildfires, safety in shared airspace, autonomous offroad driving, autonomous full-scale helicopter flight, bridge inspection and drone delivery.
Expertise: Intelligent UAVs, Computer Vision, AI Reasoning for Robotics, Multisensor Data Fusion, Aerial Robotics, Motion Planning, Robotics Foundations, 3D Vision and Recognition
Zeynep Temel
Associate Professor, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Temel works on bio-inspired solutions to increase mechanical intelligence in robots and robotic components.
Expertise: Micro/Nanorobots, Bio-Mechanics, Soft Robotics, Robotics Foundations, Mechatronics, Manipulation and Interfaces, Bio-engineering
David Wettergreen
Research Professor, Director of Ph.D. Program, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Wettergreen is well known for deploying robots in locations that compel scientific investigation without human presence.
Expertise: Human-Robot Interaction, Underwater Robotics, Space Robots and Systems, Robotics for Scientific Discovery, AI Reasoning for Robotics, Human-Centered Robotics, 3D Vision and Recognition
William (Red) Whittaker
Founders University Research Professor Emeritus, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science
Whittaker is a field robotics pioneer whose research interests center on mobile robots in unpredictable environments.
Expertise: Multisensor Data Fusion, Robotics in Hazerdous Application, Industrial Robotics, Field and Service Robotics, Outdoor Mobile Robots, Robotic Exploration, Robotics, Computer Software, Prototyping, Robotics for Scientific Discovery, Space Robots and Systems