Christopher G. Atkeson

Timeline

1. 1959–1981

   Early life and Harvard degrees

   He is born in Washington, D.C., in 1959. He graduates summa cum laude from Harvard in 1981 with an A.B. in biochemistry.

2. 1986

   An MIT doctorate and faculty post

   He completes an MIT doctorate in brain and cognitive science in 1986, advised by Emilio Bizzi, and joins the MIT faculty.

3. 1988–1991

   Young investigator and Sloan awards

   He holds a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award from 1988 to 1993 and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship from 1989 to 1991.

4. 1994–2000

   Associate professor at Georgia Tech

   He becomes an associate professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1994, and he holds that post until 2000.

5. 1997

   Learning from demonstration

   In 1997 he and S. Schaal publish 'Robot learning from demonstration' in the proceedings of ICML '97.

6. Since 2000

   Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon

   He joins the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, after posts at MIT and Georgia Tech.

7. 2014

   Soft robotics in Big Hero 6

   His soft-robotics work helps influence the 2014 Disney film Big Hero 6, and he consults with its production team on the design of Baymax.

8. As of October 2026

   Robots learning human techniques

   He is a professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon, and his RAI Institute work captures human techniques so that robots can watch, understand, and then perform tasks. His current research focus is enabling robots to learn tasks from direct instruction, web searches, observation and practice.