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Portrait of Ken Goldberg
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Ken Goldberg

William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering; Distinguished Professor of IEOR and EECS and Art Practice, UC Berkeley

  • William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering; Distinguished Professor of IEOR and EECS and Art Practice, University of California, Berkeley1
  • Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Ambi Robotics1
  • President, Robot Learning Foundation1
  • Co-Founder (since 2024), Jacobi Robotics13

Ken Goldberg holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering at UC Berkeley and is a Distinguished Professor of IEOR, EECS and Art Practice; Goldberg is also President of the Robot Learning Foundation and co-founder and Chief Scientist of Ambi Robotics. Goldberg's homepage links the AUTOLab (Automation Research) and the Dexterity Network (Dex-Net) grasping project. Goldberg is the senior author of the Dex-Net 2.0 paper, which trains a Grasp Quality Convolutional Neural Network on a synthetic dataset of point clouds, grasps and analytic grasp metrics.12

At a glance

Current roles
William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering; Distinguished Professor of IEOR and EECS and Art Practice +3 more
Sector
University
Fields
Robotics
Education
Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Penn, USC
Work listed
1
Honors
5
Sources cited
3
Profile reviewed

Career

Ken Goldberg completed an MS and PhD at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science with a dissertation on stochastic plans for robotic manipulation. Goldberg taught computer science at the University of Southern California from 1991 to 1995 and then joined UC Berkeley's Industrial Engineering and Operations Research department, becoming a full professor in 2002 and a Distinguished Professor in 2018.3

Goldberg has directed the Berkeley Automation Sciences Laboratory since 1995, has held secondary appointments in EECS since 2001 and in Art Practice since 2012, and has held the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering since 2017. Outside the university Goldberg co-founded Ambi Robotics in 2018, serving as Chief Scientist, co-founded Jacobi Robotics in 2024, and is President of the Robot Learning Foundation, which organizes the Conference on Robot Learning.31

Research

Goldberg's research interests listed on the CV include algorithms for feeding, fixturing, grasping and assembly in manufacturing and surgery, cloud and fog robotics, automated agriculture and deep learning for robots. The Dex-Net 2.0 paper, which Goldberg co-authored, trained a Grasp Quality Convolutional Neural Network on a synthetic dataset of point clouds and analytic grasp metrics to plan robust grasps.32

Goldberg also works in art and new media, with an appointment in Art Practice and earlier service as director of the Berkeley Center for New Media from 2007 to 2010; the homepage lists projects such as the Telegarden and AlphaGarden.31

Work and contributions

  • Dex-Net 2.0 Published research

    Senior (last) author of the 2017 paper that builds the Dex-Net 2.0 synthetic dataset of point clouds, grasps and analytic grasp metrics and uses it to train a Grasp Quality CNN.2

Timeline

  1. Became an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Southern California.3
  2. Joined UC Berkeley's IEOR department and began directing the Berkeley Automation Sciences Laboratory.3
  3. Became a professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley.3
  4. Was named to the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair of Engineering at UC Berkeley.3
  5. Co-authored the Dex-Net 2.0 paper on learning robust grasps from synthetic point clouds.2
  6. Co-founded Ambi Robotics and became its Chief Scientist.3
  7. Co-founded Jacobi Robotics.3
  8. Was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.13

Honors and recognition

  • Presidential Faculty Fellowship · The White House and the National Science Foundation, 19953
  • IEEE Fellow · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 20053
  • IEEE RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation · IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, 20163
  • Best Paper Award, ICRA 2024 · IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 20243
  • Member, National Academy of Engineering · U.S. National Academy of Engineering, 202613

Where they work

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References

3 sources · profile reviewed Oct 21, 2026 · data updated Oct 21, 2026

  1. Ken Goldberg — homepage (UC Berkeley)Ken Goldberg (UC Berkeley) · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  2. Dex-Net 2.0: Deep Learning to Plan Robust Grasps with Synthetic Point Clouds and Analytic Grasp Metrics (arXiv 1703.09312)arXiv · Paper · published Mar 27, 2017 · accessed Oct 21, 2026
  3. Ken Goldberg — Curriculum VitaeKen Goldberg, UC Berkeley · Official page · accessed Oct 21, 2026