Chad Jenkins is a leader in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). His extensive research portfolio consists of a diverse spectrum, focusing on areas such as mobile manipulation, computer vision, interactive robot systems, and human-robot interaction. He explores the fundamental building blocks of robot action and perception to enable robots to work with and assist diverse users, including older adults and people with disabilities. Dr. Jenkins is professor of robotics and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan and the leader of the Laboratory for Progress (Perceptive RObotics and Grounded REasoning SystemS).

Dr. Jenkins’s approach is impressively displayed in his 2013 TED talk, in which he and a man paralyzed by a stroke demonstrate their collaborative development and use of robots to support remote presence for people with disabilities. In the talk, the paralyzed man uses a quadrotor drone to explore parts of the world that were previously inaccessible to him. While drones are more commonplace in daily life today, making such systems useful for people living with disabilities is still quite technically challenging. Ten years ago, it was a singular achievement. This inclusive focus is testament to Dr. Jenkins’s abiding research and teaching philosophy—to make robots work for any of us, we need to make them work for everyone.

Dr. Jenkins uses this inclusive, human-centered approach in his teaching as well. He is the founding chair and among the chief architects of a new robotics undergraduate program at the University of Michigan. In developing the program, Dr. Jenkins made sure to lift the common barriers to entry in introductory courses. For example, he developed a computational linear algebra course that allows a more diverse student body to engage with the materials and contextualizes the skills being developed in robotics practice from the very beginning. Dr. Jenkins also pioneered a transformative approach to broadening participation in STEM through his leadership in the Distributed Teaching Collaboratives for Artificial Intelligence. This is a network of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and R1 universities created to connect students and faculty across all educational institutions and backgrounds with STEM learning. He has also demonstrated remarkable national leadership in advocating for equity and inclusivity within the AI landscape.

Dr. Jenkins’s excellence has been recognized through numerous awards, among them a Sloan Research Fellowship, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and a Young Investigator award from the Office of Naval Research. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and a senior member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Jenkins is the 2024 recipient of the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science, and Diversifying Computing. Popular Science named him one of the Brilliant 10 in 2011 and National Geographic called him an emerging explorer in 2013.