Francesco MONDADA

Prof. Francesco Mondada received his M.Sc. in micro-engineering in 1991 and his doctoral degree in 1997 from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). There, he participated in the development of the Khepera mobile robot, considered a standard in bio-inspired robotic research and mentioned in more than 6000 publications (google scholar).
In 1995 he co-founded the robotics company K-Team, where he has acted as CEO for five years. In 2000, he returned to EPFL after a brief period at the California Institute of Technology. He now leads research in swarm robotics and in the use of robots for education. In 2008, Mondada started the EPFL robotics festival. Under his direction, this annual tradition has become the most important scientific event at EPFL. Since 2010, he leads the research of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research “Robotics”. In 2013, he is appointed professor at EPFL, and in 2014 he was elected a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. For his work, Mondada has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Latsis University Prize in 2005 and the Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching in 2011.