Vijay Kumar @ University of Pennsylvania

VIJAY KUMAR received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
from The Ohio State University in 1985 and 1987 respectively. He has
been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and
Applied Mechanics with a secondary appointment in the Department of
Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania
since 1987. He is currently the UPS Foundation Professor and the
Chairman of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics.

Dr. Kumar served as the Deputy Dean of the School of Engineering and
Applied Science from 2000-2004. He directed the GRASP Laboratory, a
multidisciplinary robotics and perception laboratory, from
1998-2004.

Dr. Kumar's research interests lie in the area of robotics and
networked multi-agent systems. He is a Fellow of the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a Fellow of the Institution of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He has served on the
editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation,
Journal of Franklin Institute, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design and the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. He is the recipient of the 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the 1997 Freudenstein Award for significant accomplishments in mechanisms and robotics and the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Kawamori Best Paper Award. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and an elected member of the Robotics and Automation Society Administrative Committee.