Dennis Hong, a TED alumnus, is an associate professor and the founding director of RoMeLa (Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory) of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech.

Marvin Minsky is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and had made numerous contributions to the fields of AI, cognitive science, mathematics and robotics. His current work focuses on trying to imbue machines with a capacity for common sense.

Hod Lipson is a roboticist who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing. An award-winning researcher, teacher, and communicator, Lipson enjoys sharing the beauty of robotics though his books, essays, public lectures, and radio and television appearances.

Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in England. Warwick works in robotics and artificial intelligence and recently designed an intelligent deep brain stimulator to treat Parkinson’s Disease. Best known for his pioneering research with implants, including experimentation on himself which led to him being called the ‘World’s First Cyborg.’

Heather Knight is an electrical engineer and social roboticist who runs Marilyn Monrobot in New York, where she and her cohort create “charismatic machine performances,” as well as founding the world’s first Robot Film Festival. Knight is currently conducting her doctoral research at the intersection of robotics and entertainment at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.

Jürgen Schmidhuber has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. His lab’s research on artificial neural nets won several handwriting recognition contests and number one rankings in several computer vision competitions and benchmarks.

Recently retired from his position as Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT, Rodney Brooks’ latest startup, Heartland Robotics, aims to revitalize American manufacturing by providing workers with new robotic tools. During his employment at MIT, Brooks served as director of the institution’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory—MIT’s largest lab.

Maurizio Porfiri is a professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering.

Maja Matarić is at the forefront of the growing field of “socially assistive” robotics, building intelligent machines that can interact with humans socially, rather than physically, to help them learn new skills or recover from illness and injury.

Howie Choset is a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. Motivated by applications in confined spaces, Choset has created a comprehensive program in snake robots, which has led to basic research in mechanism design, path planning, motion planning, and estimation.

Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Facebook and Silver Professor at NYU affiliated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences & the Center for Data Science. He …

Metin Sitti’s academic discipline is robotics, with emphasis on micro- and nano-scale robotics. His research program combines applied micro/nano-robotic systems with micro/nanoscale mechanics modeling and analysis.

Murray Shanahan is a professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London. In the 1980s, he studied computer science as an undergraduate at Imperial College, and then obtained his Ph.D. from Cambridge University (King’s College).

Peter Staley has been a long-term AIDS and gay rights activist, first as a member of ACT UP New York, then as the founding director of TAG, the Treatment Action Group. He served on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) for 13 years.

Michael S. Hopkins is a current NASA astronaut who returned from a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station in March. He served as a flight engineer and conducted both science experiments and maintenance, spending almost 13 hours outside of the station on spacewalks.

Alvar Saenz-Otero is the director of the MIT Space Systems Laboratory at the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His primary role is as lead scientist of the SPHERES program, where he develops research activities for tests aboard the International Space Station and in ground facilities.

Mike Massimino is an engineer, NASA astronaut, and veteran of two spaceflights. He logged more than 571 hours in space, where he conducted four spacewalks and serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Eleanor G. Rieffel explores algorithm design and fundamental questions in quantum computation as a leader of NASA’s QuAIL team. Her book, Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction, with co-author Wolfgang Polak, was published by MIT Press and has received stellar reviews.

Alan Peters is the principal architect of Neocortex. He’s also an associate professor of electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University where he supervises research on a humanoid robot, ISAC, in the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory. He has over fifty publications and has secured research funding in excess of $4 million.

Eric Chown is a professor of Computer Science at Bowdoin College. In 2012 he helped create Bowdoin’s Digital and Computational Studies program and has served as Co-Director of the program ever since. Since 2005 he has led Bowdoin’s RoboCup team, the Northern Bites, in worldwide robotic soccer competitions.

Laura Overdeck is the founder of Bedtime Math, a nonprofit that aims to help kids love math like playtime or dessert. Over a quarter million families enjoy Overdeck’s wacky nightly math problems. Bedtime Math is also the creator of Crazy 8s Club, a lively hands-on after-school math club for grades K-5 which has served nearly 90,000 kids in just 2 years.

Sougwen Chung (愫君) is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist based in New York. Her work explores transitional edges — the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine — as an approach to understanding the interaction between humans and computers.

Shannon Vallor is the Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Santa Clara University. She is also a Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google, and a former President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology.

Ronald Arkin is Regents’ Professor and Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Georgia Tech. He served as visiting professor at KTH Stockholm, Sabbatical Chair at Sony in Tokyo, member Robotics/AI Group at LAAS/CNRS in Toulouse, and in Queensland University of Technology and CSIRO/Brisbane.

Michael Bartlett is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University. His research investigates and creates soft materials with multifunctional properties for soft robotics and electronics, adaptive materials, and ‘smart’ adhesives.

Frank Grasso directs the Biomimetic and Cognitive Robotics lab which researches the control, organization, and coordination of behavior using robots and living animals.

Jasmine Lawrence currently serves as a technical program manager on the Portal team at Facebook. This team is building products that make it easier for people to connect with the ones they love most.