Robot Talk

Claire chatted to Pratap Tokekar from the University of Maryland about how teams of robots with different capabilities can work together. Pratap Tokekar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, and an Amazon Scholar. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the GRASP lab of University of Pennsylvania and later, an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech. He has a degree

Claire chatted to Maria Elena Giannaccini from the University of Aberdeen about soft and bioinspired robotics for healthcare and beyond. Maria Elena Giannaccini has a degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Università di Pisa in Italy. She conducted her Master’s thesis at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna as part of the EU-funded OCTOPUS project. In 2015, she obtained her PhD in Robotics at the Bristol Robotics, where she focussed on developing safe, variable stiffness robotic devices. She

Claire chatted to Jonathan Walker from Innovate UK about translating robotics research into the commercial sector. Jonathan Walker is the Innovation Lead for Robotics and Sensors at Innovate UK. He is working with government, universities, businesses and cross-sector teams to accelerate the development and uptake of robotics in the UK. Areas of particular interest are the built environment, circular economy, and helping people live independently for longer. Jonathan wants to support these themes through cluster

Claire chatted to Esyin Chew from Cardiff Metropolitan University about service and social humanoid robots in healthcare and education. Esyin Chew is the Director of the EUREKA Robotics Centre, one of 11 specialist robotics centres in the UK, impacting underprivileged communities with over 120 humanoid robots. She has led million-pound government or industrial-funded global projects across the UK, EU, Australia, Malaysia, China and Indonesia, including the British Council award-winning Global PIE programme for Women in

Claire chatted to Matt Beane from the University of California, Santa Barbara about how humans can learn to work with intelligent machines. Matt Beane conducts field research on robots and AI in the workplace, focusing on positive exceptions applicable to the broader world of work. He has published his award-winning research in top management journals and presented on the TED stage. He’s been recognized as a Human-Robot Interaction Pioneer and named to the Thinkers50 Radar

Claire chatted to Gisela Reyes-Cruz from the University of Nottingham about how humans interact with, trust and accept robots. Gisela Reyes-Cruz investigates human-computer and human-robot interaction to understand everyday life interactions with technologies, as well as trust in them and public acceptance. These technologies include autonomous and robotic systems: from mobile apps that have, or may have, a component that works autonomously, to robots that can navigate a physical space on their own, such as

Claire chatted to John Leonard from Massachusetts Institute of Technology about autonomous navigation for underwater vehicles and self-driving cars. John Leonard is a Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous underwater vehicles, self-driving vehicles, and other types of mobile robots. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering and

Robotics is helping to rehabilitate and increase human abilities in areas like mobility and stamina. Innovations in robotic devices, exoskeletons, and wearable tech aim to offer disabled people different perspectives and new experiences, as well as supporting humans more widely to access, inhabit and work safely in dangerous and extreme conditions. What does the future hold for these technologies and the people they will become a part of? In this special live recording at the

Claire chatted to Simone Schuerle from ETH Zürich all about microrobots, medicine and science. Simone Schuerle is Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, where she heads the Responsive Biomedical System Lab. With her team, she develops diagnostic and therapeutic systems at the nano- and microscale with the aim of tackling a range of challenging problems in medicine. One major focus of her current research is addressing limitations in drug delivery through scalable magnetically enhanced

Claire chatted to Lord Ara Darzi from Imperial College London all about robotic surgery – past, present and future. Ara Darzi is Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London and holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery. In 2002, he was knighted for his services to medicine and surgery and in 2007 was introduced as Lord Darzi of Denham to the UK’s House of Lords as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of