Sertac Karaman is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. He is the Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS)—interdepartmental research center committed to advancing research and education in the analytical information and decision sciences. Karaman is also the principal investigator of one of the Department of the Air Force-MIT AI Accelerator projects: Transferring Multi- Robot Learning through Virtual & Augmented Reality for Rapid Disaster Response. Karaman’s research interests lie in the broad areas of robotics and control theory. In particular, he studies the applications of probability theory, stochastic processes, stochastic geometry, formal methods, and optimization for the design and analysis of high-performance cyber-physical systems. The application areas of his research include driverless cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, distributed aerial surveillance systems, air traffic control, certification and verification of control systems software, and many others. Prof. Karaman is the recipient of an Amazon Faculty Award in 2020, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award in 2017, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2017, Army Research Office Young Investigator Award in 2015, National Science Foundation Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2014, AIAA Wright Brothers Graduate Award in 2012, and an NVIDIA Fellowship in 2011. He is also co-founder of Optimus Ride, a Boston-based MIT-spinoff startup company that is developing self-driving vehicle technologies to enable accessible, equitable, safe, and sustainable mobility for all. Optimus Ride employs more than 250 employees, many of them MIT graduates.
