Manuela Veloso
Manuela Veloso is professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. She is a renowned researcher, innovator and scientific leader in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. She is also recognised as being among the most influential women in engineering, acting as a role model for uncountable researchers.
Among her many ground-breaking contributions, Manuela Veloso has been pivotal to the creation of the Robocup robot competition, which has motivated generations of young researchers and has helped to popularise and democratise the ideas of AI and robotics to the general public. She has also pioneered the concept of CoBots (collaborative robots) setting the ground for the new view of AI operating in symbiosis with humans.
Today, AI is not only the object of great hopes but also of fundamental concern to governments and citizens. The two examples above bear witness to Manuela Veloso’s visionary capacity as a researcher and how, long before the current AI hype, she identified and acted upon two of the most prominent concerns: the need to democratise AI and the hope that AI will collaborate with humans rather than replace them.
Manuela Veloso’s approach to AI and robotics is fully aligned with the approach taken at Örebro University, and our paths have crossed several times in the past, e.g., in the context of the Robocup initiative, and in the series of “Lucia” events on AI and robotics organised by Örebro University. We look forward to even stronger collaboration between Örebro University and Manuela Veloso in the years to come.