Speaker Bio:

Minoru Asada is Professor and Director of the Japan Science and Technology Agency, Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (JST ERATO) Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project in the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University. He is also President of the RoboCup Federation.

Dr. Asada received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D., degrees in control engineering from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and 1982, respectively. From 1982 to 1988, he was a Research Associate of Control Engineering, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan. In April 1989, he became an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering for Computer-Controlled Machinery, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan. In April 1995 he became a Professor of the same department and in April 1997, was appointed Professor of the Department of Adaptive Machine Systems. From August 1986 to October 1987, he was a visiting researcher at the Center for Automation Research, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Professor Asada received the 1992 best paper award of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS92), and the 1996 best paper award of RSJ (Robotics Society of Japan). Also, his paper was one of the ten finalists of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society 1995 Best Conference Paper Award. He was a general chair of IEEE/RSJ 1996 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS96). Since early 1990, he has been involved in RoboCup activities and his team was the first champion team, along with the USC team, in the middle size league of the first RoboCup held in conjunction with IJCAI-97, Nagoya, Japan. In 2001, he received a Commendation by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japanese Government as a Person of Distinguished Services to Enlightening People on Science and Technology. Since 2002, he has been the president of the International RoboCup Federation. Professor Asada was designated an IEEE Fellow in 2005.

About the Lecture
Teruko Yata was a postdoctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute from 2000 until her untimely death in 2002. After graduating from the University of Tsukuba, working under the guidance of Prof. Yuta, she came to the United States. At Carnegie Mellon, she served as a post-doctoral fellow in the Robotics Institute for three years, under Chuck Thorpe. Teruko's accomplishments in the field of ultrasonic sensing were highly regarded and won her the Best Student Paper Award at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 1999.

It has been noted often, that "the quality of her work was exceeded only by her kindness and thoughtfulness as a friend." Join us in paying tribute to an extraordinary colleague and friend.

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