Rodney Brooks

Roboticist

Rodney Brooks is a robotics entrepreneur and co-founder of Robust.AI (2019), Founder, former Chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics, 2008-2018). He is also a Founder, former Board Member (1990 – 2011) and former CTO (1990 – 2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT). Dr. Brooks is the former Director (1997 – 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Rodney Brooks

Roboticist

Rodney Brooks is a robotics entrepreneur and co-founder of Robust.AI (2019), Founder, former Chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics, 2008-2018). He is also a Founder, former Board Member (1990 – 2011) and former CTO (1990 – 2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT). Dr. Brooks is the former Director (1997 – 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

Biography

He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has pubished many papers in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life.

Dr. Brooks served for many years as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Group (ISAG) of National Information and Communication Technology Australia (NICTA), and on the Global Innovation and Technology Advisory Council of John Deere & Co. He is currently an Xconomist at Xconomy and a regular contributor to the Edge. Since June 2014 he has been a member of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology, VCAT, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. Since June 2015 he has been an external member of GE’s Robotics Advisory Council. Since January 2016 he has been Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Board of Toyota Research Institute.

He won the Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence). In 2008 he won the IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production. In 2014 he won the Robotics Industry Association’s Engelberger Robotics Award for Leadership. And he won the 2015 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award. He was awarded honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Flinders University in 2016, and Worcestor Polytechnic Institute in 2017.

He has been the Cray lecturer at the University of Minnesota, the Mellon lecturer at Dartmouth College, and the Forsythe lecturer at Stanford University. He was co-founding editor of the International Journal of Computer Vision and is a member of the editorial boards of various journals including Adaptive Behavior, Artificial Life, Applied Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Robots and New Generation Computing.

Topics

  • Creativity, Innovation and Advanced Technology
  • Artificial Intelligence & Robotics and the Future – How Will They Change the World?
  • Smart, Collaborative Robots (Cobots)

Publications

  • Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (2003)
  • Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI (1999)

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