Ken Goldberg

Ken Goldberg Profile

Ken Goldberg is the Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at U.C. Berkeley. While Goldberg has spent four decades building better and more graceful robots, he is also dedicated to helping people better understand emerging technologies so that they can find opportunities in the societal shifts that will occur as robots come to play a greater role in our daily lives.

As a child, Goldberg and his father, also an engineer, tried to build an industrial robot that was capable of moving dangerous chemicals in the chromium plating plant that Goldberg’s father owned and run. Held back by a lack of materials, they did not achieve their goal. Goldberg’s father developed leukemia, most likely as a result of the extensive contact he had with carcinogens in his workplace, and passed away at the age of 45. The event cemented Goldberg’s decision to study engineering and pursue a career making robots capable of improving people’s lives.

Goldberg holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. His research has resulted in eight U.S. patents. His project, Telegarden, which allowed Internet users to control a real robot that cared for a garden, was the first time someone combined robots and web interfacing. He and his teams have made great advances in telerobotics, Cloud robotics, and robots used for medical procedures, including delicate cancer treatments. In addition to his position at U.C. Berkley, he holds an appointment at the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Goldberg has authored or co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed technical papers on algorithms for robotics, automation, and social information filtering. He is the co-director of the Emmy-Nominated Short Documentary “Why We Love Robots,” as well as the author of three award-winning Sundance documentary films, “The Tribe”, “Yelp”, and “Connected: An Autoblogography of Love, Death, and Technology.” Goldberg has delivered over 400 keynotes in venues such as SXSW, the World Economic Forum, Aspen Ideas Festival, Google Zeitgeist, and TEDEd.

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  Award winning Roboticist, Filmmaker, and UC Berkeley Engineering Professor Ken Goldberg is a popular public speaker who combines compelling images and videos in dynamic presentations on emerging Artificial Intelligence and Robotics technologies, sharing insights about what isn’t new, what is new, and how we can prepare for the future.

  Ken trains the next generation of researchers and entrepreneurs in his research lab at UC Berkeley; he has published over 200 papers in robotics and social media and holds 8 US Patents. Ken is a pioneer in technology and visual expression, bridging the “Two Cultures” of Art and Science. With unique skills in creative problem solving, invention, and thinking on the edge, Ken has presented over 400 keynote and invited lectures to audiences around the world at events such as the World Economic Forum, Aspen Ideas Festival, Google Zeitgeist, TEDx, Web 2.0, SXSW, and at Google, General Electric, Intel, Cisco, Fujitsu, Siemens, Autodesk, Samsung, Tata, Vodefone, Deutsche Telekom, Fidelity, and Flextronics on topics such as the five listed below.

  Ken and his graduate students pioneer research in optimal robot grasping, motion, and design for applications ranging from surgery to manufacturing to precision agriculture to social media. Ken’s artwork has appeared in 70 exhibits including the Whitney Biennial and he developed the first provably complete algorithm for part feeding and the first robot on the Internet. Ken served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), Co-Founder of: the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM), Hybrid Wisdom Labs, the Moxie Film Studio, the African Robotics Network (AFRON), and Founding Director of UC Berkeley’s Art, Technology, and Culture Lecture Series. Ken’s projects are regularly featured on television, radio, and in publications such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, and der Spiegel.

  Ken was awarded the NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President Bill Clinton in 1995 and elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.

  With unique skills in creative problem solving, invention, and thinking on the edge, Ken has engaged audiences around the world in over 400 keynotes.