Professor Sethu Vijayakumar

Professor Sethu Vijayakumar is Programme Director for Human-AI Interfaces and Robotics, and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, with responsibility for defining and driving the institute's Robotics and Autonomous Systems agenda.

He is the Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, UK and the Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He holds the prestigious Senior Research Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, co-funded by Microsoft Research and is also an Adjunct Faculty of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He has pioneered the use of large scale machine learning techniques in the real-time control of several iconic robotic platforms such as the SARCOS and the HONDA ASIMO humanoids, KUKA-LWR robot arm and iLIMB prosthetic hand. His latest project (2016) involves a collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Centre on the Valkyrie humanoid robot being prepared for unmanned robotic pre-deployment missions to Mars. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a judge on BBC Robot Wars and winner of the 2015 Tam Dalyell Prize for excellence in engaging the public with science.