Biography
Dr. Mirko Kovac is Director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory, Reader in Aero-structures at Imperial College London and Royal Society Wolfson Fellow. He is also heading the newly established Materials and Technology Centre of Robotics at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Zürich. His research group focusses on the development of novel, biologically inspired flying robots for distributed sensing in air and water and on autonomous robotic construction for future infrastructure systems. Dr. Kovac’s particular specialisation is in robot design, hardware development and multi-modal robot mobility.
Before his appointment in London, he was post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University and he obtained his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) in 2005. During his studies he was research associate with the University of California in Berkeley USA, RIETER Automotive Switzerland, the WARTSILA Diesel Technology Division in Switzerland, and CISERV in Singapore.
Since 2006, he has presented his work in >70 international proceedings and journals, has won several best paper awards and has delivered >30 keynote lectures as well as >50 seminar and conference talks. He obtained a total of £8m in research grants and he regularly acts as advisor to government, investment funds and industry on robotics opportunities.