Speaking Invitations

• Invited speaker: U. Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. Nov. 2009.
• Invited speaker: U. Versailles St. Quentin en Yvelines, Paris, France. Nov. 2009.
• Invited speaker: U. Pennsylvania Grasp Lab Seminar Series, PA. Oct. 2009.
• Invited speaker: SPIE Orlando, FL. April 2009.
• Invited industry panel member on Innovation: NDIA, Dallas. March 2009.
• Invited speaker: Max Planck Symposium on Autonomous Systems, Tuebingen, Germany, Jan. 2009.
• Invited speaker: Georgia Tech RIM Seminar Series, Atlanta, GA. Oct. 2008.
• Invited speaker: CCC/CRA Service Robotics Roadmapping Workshop, San Francisco, CA. Aug. 2008.
• Invited speaker: UMass Amhearst, July 2008.
• Invited speaker, Robotics Institute seminar series, Carnegie Mellon University, Nov. 2006.
• Invited speaker: GOOGLE Tech Talk, NY. Aug. 2006.
• Invited plenary speaker, PerMIS’06 conference (Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems) and SSRR’06 conference (Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics), at NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology), Gaithersburg, MD, Aug. 2006.
• Invited plenary speaker, 'bionik’ Industriekongress, Berlin, March 2006.
• Invited speaker, International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, Ilmenau, Germany, Sept 2005.
• Invited keynote speaker, TITech COE/SMS Workshop (organized by Prof. Hirose), Yokohama, Japan, Nov 2001.
• Invited keynote speaker, 4th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots, Karlsruhe, Germany, Sept 2001.
• Invited keynote speaker, International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, Montreal, Canada, Aug 2000.
• Invited seminars at national and international companies and universities (KTH Stockholm, Laboratoire de Robotique de Paris, Ecole Nationale de Bourges, Ecole Polytechnique, Universite de Sherbrooke, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Vanderbilt, U. Utah, Johns Hopkins, McGill, Laval U., U. Victoria, UBC, U. Massachusetts at Amherst, Tokyo U. of Electro-Communications, Olin College, SigmaXi, Technische Universitaet Munic, Superior Electric, Spar Aerospace, MPB Technologies, Boeing, Diehl Munitionssysteme Nuernberg, German Army, DARPA, DRDC Medicine Hat, and more).

Patents

• “Single Actuator Per Leg Robotic Hexapod,” U.S. Patent 6,481,513, (with U. Saranli and D. Koditschek). Assigned to McGill U. and U. Michigan. Licensed to Sandbox Innovations, 2007.
• “Reconfigurable Robot Drive,” U.S. Patent 7,398,843 (with A. Saunders and F. Grimminger). Assigned to Boston Dynamics.
• “Robot and Robot Leg Mechanism,” U.S. Patent 7,734,375 (with A. Saunders). Assigned to Boston Dynamics.

Awards and Distinctions

• Advisory Board, International Journal of Robotics Research, since 2008.
• APEX Grand Award 2007. Awarded to the Journal of Field Robotics, for the 2006 DARPA Grand Challenge Special Issues, co-edited with Karl Iagnemma. APEX Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. Out of almost 5,000 entries, there were only 114 Grand Awards in 11 main categories.
• Invited, editor-in-chief of an international robotics journal. Declined, 2007.
• Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award 2006 (with Boston Dynamics’ BigDog team).
• McGill Dawson Scholar, 2003.
• Invited feature survey article, Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan, Anniversary Issue, 20(3):15-20, April 2002.
• Most cited article in the International Journal of Robotics Research:, "RHex: A Simple and Highly Mobile Hexapod Robot," with U. Saranli and D. Koditschek, July 2001.
• Best Paper Award: F. Aghili, M. Buehler, and J. M. Hollerbach, "Development of a High Performance Direct-Drive Joint," IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intelligent Robots and Systems, Takamatsu, Japan, Nov. 2000.
• Teaching Release Award, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 1997/98.
• Scholar, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 1991-95.
• NSERC/CIAR junior Industrial Research Chair, with John Hollerbach, 1991-94.
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, with Marc Raibert, MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, 1990/91.