Illah Nourbakhsh

Professor of Robotics and Director of the CREATE Lab, Carnegie Mellon University

Illah R. Nourbakhsh is a professor of robotics and associate director for robotics faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is also director of the Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) Lab, http://www.cmucreatelab.org. His current research projects explore community-based robotics, including educational and social robotics, and ways to use robotic technology to empower individuals and communities. The CREATE Lab's programs have engaged more than 40,000 people globally, and the CREATE satellite program is forging additional CREATE Lab partners in new geographic areas.

Dr. Nourbakhsh serves as chairman and CEO of Airviz, Inc., a company dedicated to empowering individuals regarding home air quality, and board chairman of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project. He is a World Economic Forum Global Steward and a senior advisor to The Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Nourbakhsh also is a member of the Global Future Council on the Future of AI and Robotics, the IEEE Global Initiative for the Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems, and the Global Innovation Council of the Varkey Foundation. His honors include being named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences, serving as Robotics Grouplead at NASA/Ames Research Center, and being inducted into the June Harless West Virginia Hall of Fame. He was a founder and chief scientist of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc., which was acquired by Witness Systems, Inc., currently serves as a trustee of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Winchester Thurston School.

Dr. Nourbakhsh is co-author of the second edition MIT Press textbook “Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots,” and author of the MIT Press book for general readership “Robot Futures.” Most recently, he published “Parenting for Technology Futures” as an Amazon paperback. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in computer science from Stanford University and has been a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon since 1997.