Plenary Speakers

Prof. Maria Chiara Carrozza received the Laurea degree in physics from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1990 and the PhD in Engineering at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA), in 1994. Since November 2006, she is Full Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Robotics at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Since Nov. 2004 to Oct. 2007, she was Director of the Research Division and elected Member of the national Board of the Italian association of Biomedical Engineering. Since Nov. 2007, she is Rector of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. She was visiting professor at the Technical University of Wien, Austria, with a graduate course entitled Biomechatronics, she is involved in the scientific management of the Italy-Japan joint laboratory for Humanoid Robotics ROBOCASA, Waseda University, Tokyo, and she is Guest Professor at the Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. She has scientific and coordination responsibilities within several research projects, funded under the Sixth and Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union (some recent projects are CYBERLEGs, WAY, CogLaboration, Nanobiotouch, Evryon, SmartHand, Nanobiotact, Neurobotics, RobotCub, CyberHand) and under national and regional programmes (some recent projects are OPERA, EARLYRehab, AMulos, OpenHand, Tectum, Rita, Safehand, Neuro-Bike). Since 2004 to 2007, she was the Coordinator of the ARTS Lab of SSSA. In the period 2006-2011 she supervised more than 45 PhD, Master and Bachelor theses and she currently leads a group of about 35 researchers, PhD students and research assistants. She is author of several scientific papers (more than 85 ISI papers and more than 150 papers in referred conference proceedings) and of 12 national and international patents. She served as Editor of at least 4 Special Issues of International Journals, as Member of Committees for at least 13 International Conference organizations, she gave more than 50 invited lectures and plenary speeches to national and international conferences, and she is a recipient of at least 11 awards. She is member and of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology. She is member of the RAS Technical Committee “Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation”. Her research interests are in ambient assisted living, technical aids, biorobotics, rehabilitation engineering, bionics, cybernetic hands, humanoid robotics, systems for functional replacements and augmentation, biomechatronic interfaces, tactile sensors, artificial skin, harvesting microtechnologies, human touch.

Katja Mombaur is a full professor at the Institute of Computer Engineering (ZITI) of Heidelberg University and head of the Optimization in Robotics & Biomechanics (ORB) group as well as the Robotics Lab. She holds a diploma degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Heidelberg University. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the Robotics Lab at Seoul National University, South Korea. She also spent two years as a visiting researcher in the Robotics department of LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse. Katja Mombaur is coordinator of the newly founded Heidelberg Center for Motion Research. She also is PI in the European H2020 project SPEXOR and the Graduate School HGS MathComp as well as in several national projects. Until recently, she has coordinated the EU FP7 project KoroiBot and was PI in the EU projects MOBOT and ECHORD–GOP. She is founding chair of the IEEE RAS technical committee Model-based optimization for robotics. Her research focuses on understanding human movement and using this knowledge to improve motions of humanoid robots and in the interactions of humans with exoskeletons, prostheses and external physical devices. Her particular interest is on dynamic motions such as walking, running, and other kinds of motions in sports, as well as motions of daily life. She and her team use and develop dynamic models and optimization methods for motion studies, based on the assumption that human movement is optimal. In this context they are also interested in inverse optimal control which can determine what a human is optimizing in a given situation.

Prof. Dr. ir. Herman van der Kooij, (1970) received his Phd with honours (cum laude) in 2000 and is professor in Biomechatronics and Rehabilitation Technology at the Department of Biomechanical Engineering at the University of Twente, and Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. His expertise and interests are in the field of human motor control, adaptation, and learning, rehabilitation robots, diagnostic, and assistive robotics, virtual reality, rehabilitation medicine, and neuro-computational modelling. He has published over 100 publications in the area of biomechatronics and human motor control. He has directed approximately € 8.5 million in research funding over the past 10 years, from which he gained expertise in the management of (inter)national medium-scale projects. He is associate editor of IEEE TBME, member of IEEE EMBS technical committee of Biorobots and was member of several scientific program committees in the field of rehabilitation robotics, bio-robotics, and assistive devices. He is co-group leader of the technology development for new rehabilitation robotics workgroup of the Cost Action European Network on Robotics for NeuroRehabilitation and coordinator of the FP7 program Symbitron. He is member of the program committee of the Dutch IMDI core on Neurocontrol, and of the NeuroSipe programme. At the UT he is founder and head of Rehabilitation robotics laboratory that therapeutic robots for the rehabilitation of upper and lower extremities. He is founder and head of the Virtual Reality Human performance lab that combines robotic devices, motion capturing and virtual environments.

Michael Goldfarb received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1988, and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
Since 1994, he has been with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, where he is currently the H. Fort Flowers Professor. His research interests include the design and control of advanced upper and lower extremity prostheses, and gait restoration for spinal cord injured persons.