She is revolutionizing the field of robotics, AI and autonomy: Daniela Rus, internationally renowned computer scientist and Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), will give this year’s Gödel lecture on the latest developments in robotics and AI and their crucial impact on our society.

This year’s Vienna Gödel Lecture marks the highlight of our 20th Anniversary Celebration at TU Wien Informatics. Before the Vienna Gödel Lecture, we will celebrate the Faculty’s milestones with a talk by the renowned Austrian Computer Scientist Georg Gottlob and will look ahead at what’s to come next.

Schedule

16:30–16:45 Opening and Moderation

• Stefan Szeider, Professor at TU Wien Informatics, Head of the Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA)
• Gerti Kappel, Dean of TU Wien Informatics
• Jens Schneider, Rector of TU Wien

16:45–18:00 Vienna Gödel Lecture

• Daniela Rus, Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT

18:00–19:30 Networking and Celebration

• Join us for drinks, refreshments, and celebration after the lecture.

About Daniela Rus

“I imagine a future where robots are so integrated in the fabric of human life that they become as common as smartphones are today.”

Daniela Rus’s groundbreaking research is bridging the current capabilities of robots and their potential to become ubiquitous helpers. By enhancing machines’ reasoning, learning, and adaptability in human-centric environments, she is pushing the boundaries of what robots can achieve. She creates user-friendly interfaces that foster a natural and intuitive interaction between humans and robots. Furthermore, Rus is at the forefront of developing innovative tools for the rapid and efficient design and production of next-generation robots. The impact of her research is immense, spanning multiple sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, smart cities, healthcare, and even domestic chores like cooking.

Daniela Rus is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL); and Deputy Dean of Research for Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT. Rus serves as Director of the Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center, whose focus is advancing AI research and its applications to intelligent vehicles. She is an MITRE senior visiting fellow, serves as a USA expert member for GPAI (Global Partnerships in AI), a member of the board of advisers for Scientific American, a member of the Defense Innovation Board, and several other boards of technical companies.

Rus is a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI, and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the 2017 Engelberger Robotics Award from the Robotics Industries Association. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

About Vienna Gödel Lectures

Named after the famous Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and philosopher Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) and introduced in 2013, the annual Vienna Gödel Lectures bring world-class scientists to Vienna. The lecture series illustrates computer science’s fundamental and disruptive contribution to our information society, and it investigates how our discipline explains and shapes the world we live in—and thereby, our lives as such.

Photographs and/or video will be taken at this event. By attending, you grant TU Wien Informatics full rights to use the material (and any reproductions or adaptations) for fundraising, publicity, or other purposes. This may include (but is not limited to) the right to use in our print and online publicity, social media, press releases, and funding applications. If you wish that no photographs explicitly depicting you are used for these purposes, please send an informal message. — Thank you!

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