Dr. Goldie Nejat, PhD, P.Eng., is the Canada Research Chair in Robots for Society and a Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. She is also the Founder and Director of the Autonomous Systems and Biomechatronics Laboratory (asblab.mie.utoronto.ca) Professor Nejat is an Adjunct Scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). She is also the former Director of the Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics at UofT.
Prof. Nejat’s research focuses on developing intelligent service robots and robot cooperative teams for applications in health, eldercare, emergency response, search and rescue, security, retail and manufacturing. Dr. Nejat’s research is constantly pushing the envelope of the capabilities of current robots. Her team’s socially assistive robots, including Brian, Casper, Tangy, Blueberry, Salt and Pepper, and Luke and Leia, are being designed to provide cognitive and social interventions, help with activities of daily living, and lead group recreational activities to improve the quality of life of adults and their caregivers including older adults living with dementia. Her and her team collaborate with healthcare experts and a number of healthcare facilities in order to develop these unique social robots so that they can be effectively integrated into people’s everyday lives. She has been invited to speak about her research to scientists, healthcare professionals, policymakers, governments and the general public at many events, conferences and institutions around the world. She has served on the organizing, program and editorial committees of numerous international conferences and journals on robotics, automation, human-robot interaction and medical devices. She is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Social Robotics and is also a past Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE). Her team's work has been presented in over 100 media stories including in Popular Science, National Geographic Magazine, Time Magazine, Bloomberg, NBC News, the Telegraph, Reader's Digest, and the Discovery Channel. In 2020, she received the Engineering Excellence Medal from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (PEO) and the Professional Engineers Ontario. Her other recognitions include the Engineers Canada Young Engineer Achievement Award, and the Young Engineer Medal from PEO.