PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Mac Schwager

Mac Schwager is an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University and director of the Multi-Robot Systems Lab, whose work includes robot cooperation and autonomous navigation. He earned a mechanical engineering BS at Stanford in 2000 and a mechanical engineering PhD at MIT in 2009. After postdoctoral research at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, he taught at Boston University from 2012 to 2015 and joined Stanford in 2015. With collaborators, he developed vehicle tracking algorithms in 2020 and camera-based navigation through neural radiance fields in 2021. He coauthored SINGER in 2025, a system that guides drones from language instructions using onboard sensing and computing.

Works
336
Citations
9,343
h-index
56
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2000–2009

    Engineering degrees and industry

    He earns a BS in mechanical engineering at Stanford in 2000 and works as an automation engineer at Applied Materials from 2000 to 2002. At MIT, he earns an MS in mechanical engineering in 2005 and a PhD in mechanical engineering in 2009.

  2. 2009–2012

    Postdoctoral research at MIT and Penn

    From 2009 to 2011, he works as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. He also holds a postdoctoral research position at the University of Pennsylvania from 2010 to 2012.

  3. 2012–2015

    Boston University and environmental robots

    He serves as an assistant professor at Boston University from 2012 to 2015, working in mechanical engineering and systems engineering. In 2014, he receives an NSF CAREER award to develop algorithms for groups of robots to control environmental threats such as forest fires, oil spills and agricultural pests.

  4. 2015

    Joining Stanford University

    In 2015, he joins Stanford University as an assistant professor and holds this rank through 2021.

  5. 2018

    An ICRA manipulation award

    In 2018, he and Preston Culbertson win the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Best Paper Award in Robot Manipulation.

  6. 2020

    Tracking with autonomous vehicle fleets

    In 2020, he coauthors Distributed Multi-Target Tracking for Autonomous Vehicle Fleets with Ola Shorinwa, Javier Yu, Trevor Halsted and Alex Koufos. Their algorithm lets autonomous cars share information to track other vehicles; experiments in the CARLA simulator use 50 cars to track 50 target vehicles. The team wins the 2020 IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Multi-Robot Systems.

  7. October 2021

    Navigation through neural radiance fields

    In October 2021, he coauthors Vision-Only Robot Navigation in a Neural Radiance World. The work presents an algorithm that navigates a robot through a 3D scene represented by a neural radiance field, using an onboard RGB camera to determine its position and orientation.

  8. September 2025

    SINGER guides drones with language

    In September 2025, he coauthors SINGER: An Onboard Generalist Vision-Language Navigation Policy for Drones with Maximilian Adang, JunEn Low and Ola Shorinwa. SINGER uses onboard sensing and computing to guide drone navigation from language instructions, with training demonstrations generated in a flight simulator.

  9. As of October 2026

    Stanford professor and lab director

    He becomes an associate professor at Stanford University in 2021. As of October 2026, he is an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, with a courtesy appointment in computer science, and directs the Multi-Robot Systems Lab.

Career

  1. Since 2021Stanford UniversityAssociate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
  2. NowStanford UniversityAssociate Professor of Computer Science (by courtesy)
  3. NowStanford UniversityDirector, Multi-Robot Systems Lab
  4. 2015–2021Stanford UniversityAssistant Professor
  5. 2012–2015Boston UniversityAssistant Professor
  6. 2010–2012University of PennsylvaniaPostdoctoral Researcher
  7. 2009–2011Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Researcher
  8. 2006–2011MIT CSAIL
  9. 2000–2002Applied MaterialsAutomation Engineer

Education

  1. 2009Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhD in mechanical engineering
  2. 2005Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMS in mechanical engineering
  3. 2000Stanford UniversityBS in mechanical engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Checked career sources: profiles.stanford.edu.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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

  1. Mac Schwager's Profile | Stanford Profiles profiles.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Engineering Profs Awarded $1.5 Million | The Brink | Boston University bu.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. News msl.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Distributed Multi-Target Tracking for Autonomous Vehicle Fleets arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Vision-Only Robot Navigation in a Neural Radiance World arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. SINGER: An Onboard Generalist Vision-Language Navigation Policy for Drones arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. People msl.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. MEMS Robotics Seminar: How general are generalist robot policies? Data scaling, diagnostic tools, and memorization in VLAs | Deep Tech deeptech.duke.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.