Category: robotics community

Enthusiastic outreach is one of Michigan Robotics’ three values: as a growing field with the ability to change everyday life, we have to take on opportunities to explain what goes into robotics, what is possible or unlikely, and hopefully inspire more people to become roboticists and provide their input and experience so that robotics can serve all communities. Even if outreach is not robotics specific, being an active community member in other ways can help inform us about others’ needs.

Students are the largest part of our robotics community, and regularly take this task on in addition to their coursework, research, student instruction workloads. While there are many, many students who take part in volunteering, there are several that have gone above and beyond in the past year. These students have earned the distinction of Robotics Outreach Ambassador.

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An inclusive-by-design degree program centers on how an embodied intelligence senses, reasons, acts and works with humans to establish a pipeline of people-first roboticists

The new undergraduate program in robotics at Michigan Engineering will empower students to practice the full spectrum of robotics—including underwater, wheeled, legged, flying and medical robots—at U-M’s 134,000-square-foot Ford Motor Company Robotics Building. 

Announced today by the U-M Robotics Department, a first among top 10 engineering schools, the program is available for fall 2022 enrollment following state approval from the Michigan Association of State Universities on June 2.

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In the fall of 2021, Michigan Engineering announced it will be launching a new Robotics Department – the first department among the nation’s top 10 engineering schools. Now, the College has found its new department’s chair: a leader at the College, the University and at the National Science Foundation—and the person who helped pave the way for integrated robotics research at U-M.

Dawn Tilbury, associate vice president for research – convergence science at U-M, will serve as the first chair of the department committed to developing roboticists with both exceptional technical skills and an enthusiasm for creating positive change in society.

“Professor Tilbury has supported engineering research and education critical to the nation’s future, and fostered innovations that benefit society,” said Alec D. Gallimore, the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering. “For five years, she chaired the steering committee for a new initiative in robotics, and we are thrilled to have her return to lead the department into its new era.”

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Congratulations to the graduate students who have been awarded prestigious National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowships. The program, which helps ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce, recognizes graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing masters and doctoral degrees.

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Talia Moore, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received the Robotics Departmental Faculty Award in recognition of “high impact accomplishments benefitting Robotics and the College of Engineering.”

Moore officially joined the Robotics Institute as a core faculty member in 2021, however began contributing to the program in 2018 while a postdoctoral fellow in ecology and evolutionary biology. At that time, Moore created the “Robotics Interfaces” seminar series supported by a grant from the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This series organized partnerships between Robotics and departments around the university to invite speakers whose talks brought not only speakers from biology, architecture, and fashion, but brought together students from varied programs to discuss the ways in which their disciplines overlap.

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