Gregory S. Chirikjian

Timeline

1. 1988–1992

   A Caltech PhD on snake robots

   He completes his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins in 1988 and a PhD in applied mechanics at Caltech in 1992, advised by Joel W. Burdick. His thesis, Theory and Applications of Hyper-Redundant Robotic Manipulators, establishes the concept of hyper-redundant (snakelike and continuum) robots and models them with framed backbone curves.

2. 1992–2007

   Professor at Johns Hopkins

   Johns Hopkins hires him as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in 1992 and promotes him to associate professor in 1997 and full professor in 2001; he chairs the department from 2004 to 2007. In the 1990s, he develops metamorphic robots, modular systems that reconfigure into different shapes. During the 2000s, his work turns to robotic self-replication and self-repair and to models of DNA and protein mechanics.

3. 1993–2019

   NSF, IEEE and ASME honours

   The NSF names him a Young Investigator in 1993, and he becomes a Presidential Faculty Fellow in 1994. ASME elects him a fellow in 2008, and IEEE makes him a fellow in 2010 for contributions to hyper-redundant manipulators. He wins ASME's Mechanisms and Robotics Award in 2014 and its Machine Design Award in 2019.

4. 2009

   Stochastic models on Lie groups

   Birkhäuser Boston publishes the first volume of his textbook Stochastic Models, Information Theory, and Lie Groups in 2009. In the 2010s, he applies Lie-theoretic methods such as the closed-form banana distribution to the uncertainty in a vehicle's position and orientation, reusing the model that describes DNA statistical mechanics.

5. 2014–2015

   Directing the National Robotics Initiative

   From 2014 to 2015, he serves as program director of the US National Robotics Initiative at the National Science Foundation. The role includes work in the Robust Intelligence cluster of the Information and Intelligent Systems Division.

6. 2019–2023

   Head of mechanical engineering at NUS

   From 2019 to 2023, he heads the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore, keeping his Johns Hopkins appointment until 2021. His Robot and Protein Kinematics Laboratory works on Robot Imagination, motion planning, humanoid robots and 3D vision, applying Lie group theory and machine learning toward robots that understand and interact with common household objects. In the 2020s, his research moves into physical AI and affordance-based reasoning.

7. January 2024

   Chair at Delaware

   In January 2024, he becomes chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware, where he is the Willis F. Harrington Professor with a joint graduate appointment in computer and information sciences. His research there focuses on affordance-based reasoning, in which robots simulate the function of everyday objects to judge what they can be used for.

8. Since 2026

   Professor of robotics at MBZUAI

   In 2026, he joins the Robotics Department at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi as a professor.