News

Newsweek Magazine recently published a list of "America's Greatest Disruptors: Medical Marvels," celebrating researchers and companies "pushing the technological boundaries of health care." WNCG faculty member Dr. Andrea Thomaz was featured along with her colleague Dr. Vivian Chu and their company, Dilligent Robotics. Dilligent Robotics developed robots for deployment in healthcare settings—an innovation that has become especially critical to healthcare processes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more here via Newsweek.

WNCG professor Andrea Thomaz appeared on The Robot Brains Podcast this week to talk about her research, her robots, and how her company Diligent Robotics has been changing healthcare during the pandemic. The podcast is hosted by renowned artificial intelligence researcher, professor and entrepreneur Pieter Abbeel. Pieter is joined by leading experts in AI Robotics from all over the world as he explores how far humanity has come in its mission to create conscious computers, mindful machines and rational robots.  Listen to the episode on The Robot Brains Podcast website.

Diligent Robotics, a healthcare technology company founded by WNCG professor Andrea Thomaz, is on the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. As highlighted in Forbes, robots like Diligent's Moxi are increasingly being used for essential functions in the patient-care setting. Read more at Forbes.com.  

WNCG professor Andrea Thomaz was interviewed by Austin Monthly on how her company Diligent Robotics is "revolutionizing health care in the age of COVID-19." Read the full interview on Austin Monthly.

Every Spring, Texas ECE’s Awards Banquet celebrates the achievements of the department’s outstanding students and faculty. Three WNCG members were among those honored at this year’s event, which was held last week on May 6. WNCG Student Ahmed Kord won the prestigious Graduate Student Excellence Award for 2018-2019. The department confers this prize annually on one graduate student who has demonstrated “high academic achievement in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.”

Picture your typical hospital scene: Patients being admitted at the front desk, doctors performing consultations, nurses administering medicine … and robots wandering the hallways toward the supply closet? Robots in the storeroom may not be the norm quite yet, but it’s happening in Austin thanks to WNCG professor Andrea Thomaz and her company, Diligent Robotics.

WNCG faculty member Constantine Caramanis was one of five associate professors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) promoted to full professor this spring. Caramanis joined UT ECE and WNCG in the fall of 2006; he is currently the WNCG’s assistant director. His research interests include: Decision-making under uncertainty, Statistical learning and data driven decision-making, Large scale networks and computation, and Adaptive Control and Optimization.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) recently awarded four UT Austin faculty $1 million for a study regarding effects and reparation efforts following WMD attacks on interdependent networks.