PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Homayoun Seraji

Homayoun Seraji was a roboticist whose research connected robot control with NASA's space exploration work. He earned degrees in electronics at Sussex and control systems at Cambridge, then taught electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he worked on robot-arm collision avoidance and led an Advanced Robotic Controls Group focused on rover navigation, behavior-based control and fuzzy-logic sensor processing. He became an IEEE Fellow in 1997, received a World Automation Congress lifetime achievement award in 2006, and died in 2007.

Timeline

  1. 1969–1972

    Degrees at Sussex and Cambridge

    He earns a B.Sc. with First Class Honours in electronics at the University of Sussex in 1969 and a Ph.D. in control systems at the University of Cambridge in 1972.

  2. 1974–1984

    Professor at Sharif

    In 1974, he joins Sharif University of Technology in Iran as a professor of electrical engineering and teaches and researches control systems through 1984.

  3. 1985

    Joining JPL

    In 1985, he joins NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a Senior Member of Technical Staff and teaches part-time at Caltech.

  4. 1997

    IEEE Fellow

    He becomes an IEEE Fellow in 1997 for contributions to robotic control technology and its space applications.

  5. 1998

    Robot-arm collision avoidance

    In 1998, he works with Bruce Bon and Robert Steele of Caltech on NASA/JPL collision-avoidance experiments for seven-degree-of-freedom robot arms.

  6. 2005

    Advanced Robotic Controls Group

    In 2005, JPL names him to lead the new Advanced Robotic Controls Group, where work includes rover navigation, coordination, behavior-based control and fuzzy-logic sensor processing.

  7. 2006

    A lifetime achievement award

    In 2006, he receives a lifetime achievement award from the World Automation Congress for contributions to multivariable control systems, robotics systems and space applications.

  8. 2007

    Death at age 59

    He dies on April 16, 2007, at age 59. An IEEE Robotics History interview recalls working with him at JPL.

  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 Homayoun Seraji yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. JPL Robotics: Homayoun Seraji robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Collision-Avoidance Experiments on 7-DOF Robot Arms - Tech Briefs techbriefs.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. JPL Robotics: New Group Supervisors for Mobility & Robotic Systems Section robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. JPL Robotics: In Memory of Homayoun Seraji robotics.jpl.nasa.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Interview with Joel Burdick - Robotics History Project roboticshistory.ieee-ras.org. Checked 19 October 2026.