Creative Robotics: Breathing Life Into Machines

Madeline Gannon

Dr. Madeline Gannon is a multidisciplinary designer inventing better ways to communicate with machines. Also known as "The Robot Whisperer", Gannon specializes in convincing robots to do things they were never intended to do: from transforming giant industrial robots into living, breathing mechanical creatures, to taming hordes of autonomous machines to behave more like a pack of animals. Her work proves that robots can be more than useful — they can become meaningful additions to our everyday lives. Gannon strives to show that technology is a cultural medium. Through her research studio, ATONATON, she brings bleeding edge tech to wider audiences by exhibiting at international cultural institutions, publishing at academic conferences, and through interviews with global media outlets, such as the BBC, the Guardian, FT, the Science Channel, NPR, WIRED, FastCompany, Dezeen, and The Verge. She is a World Economic Forum Cultural Leader, one of the 'Top 10 Women in Robotics Industry' and 'World’s 50 Most Renowned Women in Robotics’ according to Analytics Insight. She has been a Robotics & AI Researcher at NVIDIA, an Artist in Residence at the FIU Robotics & Digital Fabrication Lab, and has held previous fellowships at ETH Zurich, Autodesk Pier 9, and the Carnegie Mellon STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. Gannon holds a M.Arch from Florida International University, and a Ph.D in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University.