Gregory Dudek

Timeline

1. 1980

   A computer vision PhD at Toronto

   After schooling at St. George's School of Montreal and Vanier College, he earns a B.Sc. (Hons.) in physics and computer science at Queen's University in 1980. He goes on to an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in computer vision at the University of Toronto, where John Tsotsos supervises him and Geoffrey Hinton sits on his doctoral committee.

2. 1990s

   The Mobile Robotics Lab at McGill

   In 1991 he founds the Mobile Robotics Lab at McGill, one of Canada's first robotics and AI labs. His robot localization work begins in the mid-1990s, and with colleagues he produces the first formal proof of the complexity of global robot localization in a metric environment.

3. 2000–2007

   Stanford leave and CIM directorship

   He spends 2000–2001 on leave as a visiting associate professor in Stanford University's Department of Computer Science and at Xerox PARC. McGill names him a William Dawson Scholar in 2002, and he directs the McGill Centre for Intelligent Machines from 2004 to 2007.

4. 2004–2008

   The AQUA amphibious robot

   With Michael Jenkin of York University and Evangelos Milios of Dalhousie University, he builds AQUA, a six-flippered robot that walks on land and swims, and its first ocean trials take place in January 2004. Tests in Barbados in 2007 take AQUA to a depth of 120 feet and use it to map coral reefs. During a 2007–2008 sabbatical at MIT, he co-founds Independent Robotics Inc., a spin-out of the AQUA work that builds commercial platforms for underwater research.

5. 2008–2016

   Director of McGill computer science

   He becomes Director of the McGill School of Computer Science in September 2008, holds the post until 2016, and is named a James McGill Chair in 2008. In 2010, Cambridge University Press publishes the second edition of Computational Principles of Mobile Robotics, his textbook with Michael Jenkin, with added coverage of SLAM and multi-robot systems. He also receives the 2010 Acfas J.-Armand-Bombardier Prize for technological innovation and the 2010 CIPPRS awards for research excellence and for service to the research community.

6. 2012–2025

   The Canadian Field Robotics Network

   He is founding Scientific Director of the NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network from 2012 to 2025; renamed the NSERC Canadian Robotics Network, it spans 8 universities, 9 industrial partners and 3 government agencies. He receives an IEEE Gold Medal in 2017 and serves as General Chair of ICRA 2019, the first edition of the conference held in Canada.

7. 2018–2024

   Samsung AI Center Montreal

   Samsung names him to lead its new AI Center in Montreal in October 2018, for research in machine learning and robot-enabled multi-modal interaction, and he serves as its founding vice-president of research and lab head from 2019 to 2024. In 2022 the center moves to a new facility on Sherbrooke Street West, double the size of the original lab, and adds 15 research scientists to apply AI to telecommunications, machine learning and robotics.

8. As of October 2026

   CTO and James McGill Chair

   He receives the 2024 CS-Can Lifetime Achievement Award, and by 2024 he is back at Independent Robotics as its CTO. In June 2025 he gives the keynote at the Pacific Northwest Robotics Symposium at Simon Fraser University, presenting 3FM, his approach to using foundation models for planning, monitoring and self-healing in field robots. He holds the Distinguished James McGill Chair in McGill's School of Computer Science, co-directs the Mobile Robotics Lab with David Meger and Hsiu-Chin Lin, and is an associate academic member of Mila.