Professor Shigeki Sugano

Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering, School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University

Shigeki Sugano received the B.S., M.S., and Dr. of Engineering degrees in mechanical engineering in 1981, 1983, and 1989 from Waseda University. From 1987 to 1991, he was a research associate at Waseda University. Since 1991, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Waseda, where he is currently a professor. From 1993 to 1994, he was a visiting scholar in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stanford University. From 2001 to 2012, he served as the director of the Waseda WABOT-HOUSE laboratory. Since 2012, he has been the director of the Institute for Techno-Innovation in Chubu-Area Industries. Since 2000, He has been a member of the Humanoid Robotics Institute of Waseda University. From 2011 to 2014, he served as the Associate Dean of the School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University. Since 2014, he has served as the Dean of the School of Creative Science and Engineering, Waseda University. Since 2013, he has served as the Program Coordinator of the MEXT Leading Graduate Program: Waseda Embodiment Informatics Program.

His research interests include human-symbiotic anthropomorphic robot design, dexterous and safe manipulator design, and human-robot communication. He received the Technical Innovation Award from the Robotics Society Japan for the development of the Waseda Piano-Playing Robot: WABOT-2 in 1991. He received the JSME Medal for Outstanding Paper from the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2000, the JSME Fellow Award in 2006, and the IEEE Fellow Award in 2007. He also received IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award in 2008, the RSJ Fellow Award in 2008, and the SICE Fellow Award in 2011.He received RSJ Distinguished Service Award in 2012.

He served as the Secretary of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society (RAS) in 2006 and 2007. He served as a Co-Chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Humanoid Robotics from 2005 to 2008. He served as the IEEE RAS Conference Board, Meetings Chair from 1997 to 2005. He served as an AdCom member of the IEEE RAS and the Associate Vice-President of the IEEE RAS Conference Board from 2008 to 2013.

From 2007 to 2012, he served as the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Advanced Robotics. He served as the Head of the System Integration Division of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE) in 2006 and 2007. He serves as a Director of SICE in 2008 and 2009. From 2001 to 2010, he served as the President of the Japan Association for Automation Advancement.

He served as the General Chair of the 2003 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2003). He was a General Co-Chair of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2006) and a Program Co-Chair of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2009). He served as the General Chair of the SICE2011 in 2011. He also served as the General Co-Chair of the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2012), the Program Chair of the 2012 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM2012) and the General Chair of the 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2013) in Tokyo.