PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Hod Lipson

Hod Lipson is a roboticist whose work uses AI to make robots evolve, model their bodies, and learn movement. He studies at the Technion, joins Cornell in 2001, and explores robots evolved in software, self-reproducing machines, and Fab@Home, an open-source 3D printer. With Michael Schmidt, he develops Eureqa to infer scientific equations from data; at Columbia, his teams teach robots to model themselves and a humanoid to learn lip motion from video. As of October 2026, he is Columbia's James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation and chair of Mechanical Engineering.

Timeline

  1. By 2001

    Technion to Cornell

    Born in Haifa to physicist parents, he studies at the Technion and completes a PhD. He takes a joint appointment at MIT and Brandeis before joining Cornell in 2001 as an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

  2. 2000–2007

    Robots evolve and reproduce

    In 2000, he and Jordan Pollack evolve simple robots in simulation and fabricate the fittest designs. In 2005, he coauthors a study of modular robots that physically reproduce. By 2007, his Cornell Computational Synthesis Lab offers the open-source Fab@Home 3D printer plans for anyone to download and build.

  3. 2009–2011

    Eureqa finds natural laws

    In 2009, he and Michael Schmidt publish an algorithm that derives natural laws from observed motion data without prior physics knowledge. In 2011, they apply the Eureqa software they created to infer equations from data on glycolysis in yeast cells.

  4. 2015–2016

    Columbia and Driverless

    He joins Columbia University in 2015 after 14 years as a professor at Cornell and postdoctoral work at MIT. In 2016, he and Melba Kurman publish Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead, a book about autonomous vehicles and recent software and robotics advances.

  5. 2022

    A robot models its body

    In 2022, he coauthors Full-Body Visual Self-Modeling of Robot Morphologies with Boyuan Chen, Robert Kwiatkowski, and Carl Vondrick. The robot builds a visual model of its body for motion planning and damage recovery.

  6. 2025

    Self-modeling from video

    In 2025, with Yuhang Hu and Jiong Lin, he publishes a self-supervised method that lets robots infer their morphology, kinematics, and motor control from brief raw video. The learned simulation supports motion planning and damage recovery.

  7. January 2026

    A robot learns to lip-sync

    In January 2026, his team presents a humanoid robot that learns facial movements from its reflection and videos of people talking. The robot lip-syncs words in a variety of languages and sings a song.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and department chair

    As of October 2026, he is Columbia's James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation and chair of its Department of Mechanical Engineering. He directs Columbia's Creative Machines Lab.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Hod Lipson yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. The Lipsons manage dual careers by 'synchronizing' education and research and refusing to compromise news.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Automatic design and manufacture of robotic lifeforms nature.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Self-reproducing machines nature.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Low-cost, home-built 3-D printer could launch a revolution, say Cornell engineers news.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Move over, Newton: Scientifically ignorant computer derives natural laws from raw data news.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Computers learn to turn biological processes into equations news.cornell.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Hod Lipson's Bio hodlipson.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. Robots on the Road magazine.columbia.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. Full-Body Visual Self-Modeling of Robot Morphologies robot-morphology.cs.columbia.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. Teaching robots to build simulations of themselves nature.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  11. A robot learns to lip sync eurekalert.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  12. Mechanical Engineering < Columbia Engineering Academic Catalog | Columbia University bulletin.columbia.edu. Checked 19 October 2026.