Bio: Prof. Paul Oh is the Associate Department Head at Drexel’s Mechanical Engineering Department. He received mechanical engineering degrees from McGill (B.Eng 1989), Seoul National (M.Sc 1992), and Columbia (PhD 1999). Honors include faculty fellowships at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (2002), Naval Research Lab (2003), the NSF CAREER award (2004), the SAE Ralph Teetor Award for Engineering Education Excellence (2005) and being named a Boeing Welliver Fellow (2006). He is the Director of the Drexel Autonomous Systems Lab and also the Founding Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Aerial Robotics and UAVs. For the past 2 years, he served at the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the Program Director managing the robotics research portfolio.

Abstract: Robotics is going through a renaissance and is attracting strong academic, industrial, agency and public support both in the US and abroad. Since the 1950s, each generation of Americans has envisioned robot companions that will improve the quality of life. In the past five decades, robots have advanced, but have not lived up to expectations. Today’s unprecedented convergence of technologies makes the near-term outlook very promising. The integration of mechatronics, computational power and artificial intelligence has resulted in life-like humanoids, autonomous vehicles and planetary rovers. Robotics is on the verge of a tipping point that will positively impact our lives. Through personal reflection, this talk will explore factors that have helped to yield transformative research in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and humanoids. Factors to be discussed include industry partnerships, international collaborations and working with stakeholders outside academia.