Aaron Ames Named Director of the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies

Aaron Ames, the Bren Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Control and Dynamical Systems, and Aerospace at Caltech has been named the director and Booth-Kresa Leadership Chair of the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST). He succeeds Mory Gharib, who was the center's founding director.

"It is with great enthusiasm that I assume the role of director of CAST," says Ames, who also serves as the option representative for control and dynamical systems at Caltech as well as the undergraduate option representative for mechanical engineering. "It is truly an honor to follow in the footsteps of Professor Gharib, whose leadership since the founding of CAST has put Caltech at the forefront of autonomy research, driving groundbreaking innovation at the intersection of AI and robotics."

"Aaron's scientific curiosity, mathematical rigor, and keen eye for applications will give him the ability to lead CAST towards an exciting future in robotics and autonomy," says Harry Atwater, the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science.

CAST opened in October 2017 with the goal of pushing the boundaries of what is possible with autonomous systems. Over the last eight years, CAST researchers have shown their dedication to this goal through a variety of projects, such as developing new control systems that use AI to stabilize drones; creating bioinspired robots that can roll, walk, and fly; giving a self-driving racecar the "brains" to navigate raceways; and devising emergency response algorithms that can help spacecraft find their way out of difficult situations.

Ames says CAST has plenty of exciting work yet to do. "Looking forward, we have an exciting opportunity to further push the boundaries of autonomy with the goal of deploying intelligent robotic systems—from drones to humanoids—in complex real-world environments," he says. "This will be made possible by what makes Caltech unique: deep fundamental science combined with strong collaboration efforts among its exceptional faculty."

Ames's research group, known as the Advanced Mechanical Bipedal Experimental Robotics (AMBER) Lab, focuses on experimental and theoretical research in robotics with a particular emphasis on bipedal robots and prosthesis that could be used in robotic assistive devices. Ames is a leader in the field of humanoid technology together with the safety-critical control of robotic systems, ensuring trustworthy robotic interactions in the real world.

Ames completed his undergraduate work at the University of St. Thomas and his graduate work at UC Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech from 2006 to 2008 before serving as an associate professor at Texas A&M University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ames joined the Caltech faculty as the Bren Professor in 2017.

Ames is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) fellow and has earned multiple awards and honors. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010 and was the 2015 recipient of the American Automatic Control Council's Donald P. Eckman Award, which is given to an outstanding young engineer in the field. In 2017, Ames received an Okawa Foundation Research Grant for his work focusing on safety in autonomous robotic systems. He was also awarded the IEEE Control Systems Society's Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize in 2019. His lab has won numerous best paper awards, including best overall paper at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the world's largest robotics conference, in both 2020 and 2023.