Ken Goldberg's bio


Ken Goldberg

Ken Goldberg is a professor at UC Berkeley. He holds the craiglist Distinguished Chair in New Media, and is Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with secondary appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the School of Information.

Ken received his PhD in Computer Science from CMU in 1990 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Edinburgh University, and the Technion. From 1991-95 he taught at the University of Southern California, and in Fall 2000 was visiting faculty at MIT Media Lab. Ken is co-founder of the Berkeley Center for New Media and served as its Director from 2007-2010.

Ken is Director of the Berkeley Laboratory for Automation Science and Engineering where he and his students pursue research in four areas: 1) Geometric Algorithms for Robotics and Automation, 2) Networked TeleRobots, 3) Medical Robotics, and 4) Collaborative Filtering and Information Retrieval.

Under 1), Ken's lab develops and evaluates algorithms for grasping, feeding, sorting, and fixturing industrial parts, with an emphasis on mathematically rigorous solutions that require a minimum of sensing and actuation to reduce costs and increase reliability. Results include the first Bayesian approach to identifying parts with grasping, the first part orienting algorithm complete for all polygonal parts, complete algorithms for fixture loading and grasping parts at concavities, and the definition of deform-closure for grasping deformable parts, which resulted in Best Paper Awards and several U.S. patents. Under 2), Ken's lab developed the first robot publicly operable via the Internet (online continuously from 1994-2004) and leads experimental and theoretical work on collaborative control of remote robots and cameras. Under 3), the lab develops algorithms for robust motion planning for steerable needles, in collaboration with John Hopkins University, dosimetry and models for brachytherapy with UCSF, and in collaboration with Abbeel and others, algorithms and motion planning for robot assisted surgery. Under 4) Ken's lab develops algorithms and datasets for recommendation systems such as Eigentaste, Jester, and Donation Dashboard, and Opinion Space, a collaborative innovation system used by the U.S. Department of State.

Ken and his students have published over 150 peer-reviewed research papers, edited six books, and were granted seven U.S. patents. In 2004, Ken co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and served as Founding Chair of its Advisory Board.

Ken was named National Science Foundation Young Investigator in 1994 and selected as White House Presidential Faculty Fellow in 1995 by Bill Clinton. Ken was elected to two terms as Vice-President of Technical Activities for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is the recipient of the Joseph Engelberger Award (2000), the IEEE Major Educational Innovation Award (2001) and was elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.

Ken lives in Mill Valley with his daughters and wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.

More information on Ken's research and teaching: http://goldberg.berkeley.edu
More information on Ken's artwork: http://www.ken.goldberg.net

goldberg@berkeley.edu