Jessica Burgner-Kahrs (born 1981) is a German roboticist who works in Canada as an associate professor at the University of Toronto. Her research concerns continuum robotics, which she defines as the study of robots that can bend smoothly along their length (like a snake or tentacle) rather than being articulated at a discrete set of joints. The applications of this technology include minimally invasive surgery and servicing industrial machinery. [1]
Burgner-Kahrs was born in 1981 in Wuppertal. [2] She earned a diplom (the German equivalent of a master's degree) in computer science in 2006 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Continuing her studies there, she completed a doctorate (Dr.-Ing.) in 2010. [3] Her dissertation, Robot Assisted Laser Osteotomy, was supervised by Heinz Wörn. [4]
After postdoctoral research in the US at the Vanderbilt University Department of Mechanical Engineering, she returned to Germany in 2012 as a German Academic Exchange Service Fellow at Leibniz University Hannover. In 2013 she was awarded an Emmy Noether Fellowship. [5] She became an associate professor at Leibniz University Hannover before moving to her present position at the University of Toronto in 2019. At the University of Toronto, she holds joint affiliations with the Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Department of Computer Science, and the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering. She directs the Continuum Robotics Laboratory, and is an associate director of the Robotics Institute. [3]
Burgner-Kahrs was a 2015 recipient of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Research Foundation, "the most important prize for early career researchers in Germany". [6]
Leibniz University Hannover, also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational School, the university has undergone six periods of renaming, its most recent in 2006.
The Technische Universität Darmstadt, commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1877 and received the right to award doctorates in 1899. In 1882, it was the first university in the world to set up a chair in electrical engineering. In 1883, the university founded the first faculty of electrical engineering and introduced the world's first degree course in electrical engineering. In 2004, it became the first German university to be declared as an autonomous university. TU Darmstadt has assumed a pioneering role in Germany. Computer science, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, business informatics, political science and many more courses were introduced as scientific disciplines in Germany by Darmstadt faculty.
The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is a Max Planck Institute whose research is aimed at investigating Einstein's theory of relativity and beyond: Mathematics, quantum gravity, astrophysical relativity, and gravitational-wave astronomy. The institute was founded in 1995 and is located in the Potsdam Science Park in Golm, Potsdam and in Hannover where it closely collaborates with the Leibniz University Hannover. Both the Potsdam and the Hannover parts of the institute are organized in three research departments and host a number of independent research groups.
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, or Leibniz Prize, is awarded by the German Research Foundation to "exceptional scientists and academics for their outstanding achievements in the field of research". Since 1986, up to ten prizes have been awarded annually to individuals or research groups working at a research institution in Germany or at a German research institution abroad. It is considered the most important research award in Germany.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association.
The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis, in honor and memory of the German physicist Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, is funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, and it is awarded by a selection committee appointed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the BMBF. Since 2013, there are ten recipients of the prize and each receives 20,000 Euros, which is an increase over the original 16,000 Euros that had been given to six recipients per year until 2012.
Heinz Maier-Leibnitz was a German physicist. He made contributions to nuclear spectroscopy, coincidence measurement techniques, radioactive tracers for biochemistry and medicine, and neutron optics. He was an influential educator and an advisor to the Federal Republic of Germany on nuclear programs.
Anja Feldmann is a German computer scientist.
Leif Kobbelt is a German university professor for Computer Science with a specialization in Computer Graphics. Since 2001 he is the head of the Institute for Computer Graphics and Multimedia at RWTH Aachen university.
Ulrike Beisiegel is a German biochemist and university professor who in 2011 became the first woman to serve as president of the University of Göttingen, founded in 1737. Her research on liver fats and disease was honored with the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Rudolf Schönheimer Medal and an honorary doctorate. Intent on maintaining high levels of scholarship and diminishing scientific misconduct, she has served on many boards and committees, receiving the Ubbo-Emmius Medal for her commitment to good scientific practice and an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.
Bernhard Wilhelm Roth is a German experimental physicist.
Christine Silberhorn is a German physicist specialising in quantum optics and a full professor at the Paderborn University. In 2011, Silberhorn was awarded the Leibniz Prize and was the youngest recipient of the 2.5 million Euro prize at that time.
Eduard Arzt is an Austrian physicist and materials scientist. He is the recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the highest research award of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Acta Metallurgica Award, and the Heyn-Award, the highest award of the German Materials Society (DGM). He is a member of the German Leopoldina Academy of Sciences in Halle, and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. In 2020, Arzt was elected an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering
Eric Bodden is a German computer scientist. He holds the Chair of Secure Software Engineering at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of the Paderborn University and is Director of Software Engineering and IT Security at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Design (IEM). He is also head of the engineering department in the Collaborative Research Centre 1119 CROSSING at the Technical University of Darmstadt.
A continuum robot is a type of robot that is characterised by infinite degrees of freedom and number of joints. These characteristics allow continuum manipulators to adjust and modify their shape at any point along their length, granting them the possibility to work in confined spaces and complex environments where standard rigid-link robots cannot operate. In particular, we can define a continuum robot as an actuatable structure whose constitutive material forms curves with continuous tangent vectors. This is a fundamental definition that allows to distinguish between continuum robots and snake-arm robots or hyper-redundant manipulators: the presence of rigid links and joints allows them to only approximately perform curves with continuous tangent vectors.
Silke Ospelkaus-Schwarzer is a German experimental physicist who studies ultra-cold molecular materials at the University of Hanover Institute of Quantum Optics. She was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Award in 2022.
Vera Traub is a German applied mathematician and theoretical computer scientist known for her research on approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems including the travelling salesperson problem and the Steiner tree problem. She is a junior professor in the Institute for Discrete Mathematics at the University of Bonn.
Marion Merklein is a German metallurgist who studies metal forming, including stamping and additive manufacturing. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, where she heads the Institute of Manufacturing Technology.
Xiaoying Zhuang is a researcher in computational mechanics, including continuum mechanics, peridynamics, and the analysis of vibration and fracture mechanics. She has applied these methods in the design of composite materials and nanostructures, including materials for the aerospace industry and nano-machines for harvesting vibrational energy. Originally from China, and educated in China and England, she has worked in Norway, China, and Germany, where she is Heisenberg Professor and Chair of Computational Science and Simulation Technology of Leibniz University Hannover.
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