Brad Nelson @ Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)

Professor Nelson received a B.S. (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984, an M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Minnesota in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree in Robotics (School of Computer Science) from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. During these years he also worked as an engineer at Honeywell and Motorola, and spent two years as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana, Africa. In 1995 he became Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota in 1998, and Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich in 2002.

His primary research direction lies in extending robotics research into emerging areas of science and engineering. His current research is in microrobotics, biomicrorobotics, and nanorobotics, including efforts in robotic micromanipulation, microassembly, MEMS (sensors and actuators), mechanical manipulation of biological cells and tissue, nanofabrication and NanoElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS). He has also contributed to the fields of visual servoing, force control, sensor integration, and web-based control and programming of robots.

He was awarded a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and is a recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the McKnight Presidential Fellows Award, and the Bronze Tablet. He was elected as an IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Lecturer in 2003 and 2008. He was a finalist for and/or won best paper awards at major robotics conferences and journals in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. He was named to the 2005 “Scientific American 50,” Scientific American magazine's annual list recognizing fifty outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology from the past year for his efforts in nanotube manufacturing. His lab won the 2007 RoboCup Nanogram Competition, the first year of the Nanogram league at Robocup.

Many aspects of his research have been prominently featured in the popular press, and he has appeared on Schweizer Fernsehen 1 on "Menschen, Technik, Wissenschaft (MTW)”, “Einstein,” and a documentary on Nanomedicine, and on Deutsche Welle in “Tomorrow Today.” His 2007 Robocup Nanogram team was featured on CNN and in over 100 newspapers in the United States for their championship in Atlanta. His research has been featured in literally hundreds of on-line science-related websites as well as dozens of print magazines.

Professor Nelson serves on or has been a member of the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, the IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, the Journal of Micromechatronics, the Journal of Optomechatronics, and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. He co-edited the book Life Science Automation – Fundamentals and Applications. He has chaired several international workshops and conferences, has served as the head of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH, and is currently the Chairman of the ETH Electron Microscopy Center (EMEZ). He has four patents granted and two pending.