Our people
ACADEMIC STAFF
Waleed Abdulla
Associate Professor
Speech Processing
Ho Seok Ahn
Senior Lecturer
Robotics
Iain Anderson
Associate Professor
Bio-engineering
Elizabeth Broadbent
Professor
Psychological Medicine
Grant Covic
Professor
Systems and control
Patrice Delmas
Associate Professor
Image Processing
Georgy Gimel’farb
Professor
Software Engineering
John Hosking
Professor
Software Engineering
Ngaire Kerse
Professor
Population Health
Minas Liarokapis
Senior Lecturer
Mechanical Engineering
Bruce MacDonald
Professor
Robotics
Nataly Martini
Senior Lecturer
Pharmacy
Andrew John McDaid
Associate Professor
Mechatronics
Michael Neve
Senior Lecturer
Electromagnetic Propagation
Kathy Peri
Senior Lecturer
Nursing
Partha Roop
Senior Lecturer
Embedded Systems
Karl Stol
Senior Lecturer
Mechatronics
Kevin Wang
Senior Lecturer
Embedded Systems
Craig Sutherland
Professional Teaching Fellow
Robotics
Sarah Ward
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Mechanical Engineering
Catherine Watson
Associate Professor
Speech Processing
Henry Williams
Research Fellow
Robotics
Burkhard Wuensche
Senior Lecturer
Software Engineering
Peter Xu
Professor
Mechatronics
Xun Xu
Professor
Mechatronics
Fung Yang
Technical Engineer (Research/Design)
Robotics
Mahla Nejati
Research Fellow
Robotics
Trevor Gee
Research Fellow
Robotics
PROFESSIONAL STAFF
Emma Dawson
Research Centre Manager
Engineering Research Support
JongYoon Lim
Senior Research Engineer
Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering
David Smith
Research Engineer
Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering
Shobha Herle
Senior Research Programme Coordinator
Engineering Research Support
Analeise Murahidy
Director Strategic Growth – Engineering, Science & ABI
UniServices
Luke Spencer
Business Development Manager
UniServices
Pau Medrano-Gracia
Director of Commercialisation
UniServices
Kent Lee
Senior Commercialisation Manager
UniServices
PhD CANDIDATES
- Hoda Yamani
- Briony Forsberg
- Ans Qureshi
- David Valencia
- Stephen Bier (2015 –)
- Nethra Ganesh (2016 – present)
- Mahla Nejati
- Li Tian
- Parag Jitendra Tarwadi
- Jeremie Bannwarth
- James Kutia
- Daniel De Mel
- Mikaela Law
- Loke Cheong (2017-2019)
- Yuxuan Hu
- Debbie Johanson
- Lindsay Alexander Shaw
- L. Xie
- Z.C. Deng
- C. Cheng
- Tiago Andrade Mota
- Anna Maria Joseph
- Rocio Gomez
- H. Chen
- A.B. Din
- A. B. Hashem
- D. Yu
- S. Mostashiri
- D. Bhattacharya
- B. X. Chen
- Z. X. Chen
- Jalil Shahabi (2018 – present)
- Nastaran Saffaryazdi (2018 – present)
STUDENTS
Masters students
Itay Bin Dom
2015 – present
Eddie Hwang
Research Assistant
2017 – present
Undegraduate students/research assistants
Jack Barker
2015 – present
Seung Ho (Brian) Lee
2016 – present
Nick Rew
2016 – present
ALUMNI
Jamie Bell
Research Fellow
Robotics
Christopher Lee
Research Engineer
Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering
Soriya Em
Research Centre Manager, CARES
2016 – 2020
Maheshi Wadasinghe
Senior Research Programme Coordinator
2018 – 2020
Mohan Sridharan
Senior Lecturer
Robotics
Mark Burgess
Director, IIB and Agritech Programme
2014 – 2017
Dhanish Semar
Management Consultant
2014 – 2015
Natasha Myers
Research Programme Manager, CARES
2017 – 2018
Angela Simpson
Project Manager
2015 – 2016
Allyn Sims
Project Manager, Orchard Robotics Project
2017 – 2017
Anjali Tyagi
Project Coordinator
2015 – 2016
Jiao Xie
Project Coordinator
2012 – 2015
Ted Chen
Software Engineer
2014 – 2015
Byeong Kyu Ahn
Software Engineer, Robotics
2017 – 2018
Hammond Pearce
Part-time Programmer
2014 – 2016
Jasmine Cashbaugh
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
2015 – 2016
Faisal Dayani
Masters Student
2016 – 2018
Huansheng Liu
Masters student
2014 – 2015
Sheng Zhang
Masters Student
2016 – 2018
Lukas Vogel
Visiting Masters Student (from Germany)
2017 – 2018
Nicky Penhall
Undergraduate Student/ Research Assistant
2015 – 2018
Nick Waddington
Undergraduate Student/ Research Assistant
2015 – 2018
Elynna Yang
Undergraduate student
2015 – 2016
LEADERSHIP
Director
Professor Bruce MacDonald
Deputy Directors
Dr Ho Seok Ahn and A. Prof. Elizabeth Broadbent
Research Centre Manager
Emma Dawson
The group is led by Professor Bruce MacDonald. His philosophy is one of recognising the value of collaboration across the breadth of the sciences by creating and leading multi-disciplinary teams with global links. He is currently the Deputy Director for the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge and Principal Investigator for the Ministry of Science and Innovation’s International Investment Opportunities Fund (IIOF) HealthBots project (NZ$1.8m), and also leads the University of Auckland’s team developing the sensing systems for outdoor navigation robots as part of the ‘Multipurpose Orchard Robotics’ project, a four year collaboration between Robotics Plus Ltd, University of Auckland, University of Waikato and Plant and Food Research aiming to automate the harvesting and pollination of kiwifruit and apples. The team successfully secured a mix of public and private investment, including $7.6M grant from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). Professor MacDonald also manages the University’s Robotics and Healthcare Robotics Labs and is the research Theme Leader for Health Technology in Engineering.
EXPERTISE
- Healthcare Assistive Technologies
- Mechanics and Manufacturing
- Movement and Navigation
- Human-Robot Interaction
- Power and Communication
- Primary Industries
Dementia
Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); A. Prof. Liz Broadbent (PSYMED); JongYoon Lim
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); A. Prof. Liz Broadbent (PSYMED); Prof. Ngaire Kerse(Population Health); Dr. Kathy Peri (Nursing)
Healthbots
Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); A. Prof. Liz Broadbent (PSYMED); Prof. Ngaire Kerse(Population Health); Dr. Kathy Peri (Nursing); Dr. Catherine Watson (ECSE); JongYoon Lim, Christopher Lee
Evaluating Robots in Healthcare
A. Prof. Liz Broadbent (PSYMED); Prof. Ngaire Kerse(Population Health)
Companion Robot – Paro
A. Prof. Elizabeth Broadbent (PSYMED); Prof. Ngaire Kerse(Population Health); Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE)
Mechatronics Technologies
Dr Shane Xie, Dr Peter Xu & Dr Xun Xu (Mechanical Engineering – ME)
Multi-body Dynamic Simulation
Dr Karl Stol (ME), Dr Shane Xie (ME)
Virtual Reality Simulations
Dr Bruce MacDonald (ECSE), Dr Burkhard Wuensche (CS)
Robotics in Cognitive Manufacturing Systems
Dr Xun Xu (ME)
Medical Device Design
Dr Shane Xie – ME
Robotic Devices for Interfacing Living cells
Dr Iain Anderson (Biomimetics Lab, ABI)
Robotic Applications for Artificial Muscles
Dr Iain Anderson (ES)
Robotic Soft Arm
Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE);
Intelligent 3d Vision Systems
Dr Georgy Gimel’farb (CS), Dr Patrice Delmas (CS)
Visualisation
Dr Patrice Delmas (CS), Dr Burkhard Wuensche (CS)
Intelligent Embedded Systems Control
Dr Partha Roop (ECSE)
Visual Programming
Professor John Hosking (CS), Dr Bruce MacDonald (ECSE), Dr Georgy Gimel’farb (CS), Dr Patrice Delmas (CS)
Stability and Path Tracking
Dr Karl Stol (ME)
Path Following and Safety
Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Jamie Bell (ECSE)
Speech Production and Recognition, Signal Processing
Dr Waleed Abdulla (ECSE), Dr Catherine Watson (ECSE)
Psychological Perceptions
Dr Elizabeth Broadbent (Psychological Medicine – PSYMED)
Healthcare Application and Integration
Dr Shane Xie (ME), Professor Ngaire Kerse (General Practice and Primary Care – GPPC)
Computer Programme Novel User Interfaces
Professor John Hosking (CSI), Dr Bruce MacDonald (ECSE), Dr Burkhard Wuensche (CS)
Social Robot
Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); JongYoon Lim (ECSE)
Emotion System
Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE);
Power Electronics
Dr Grant Covic (Electrical and Computer Engineering – ECSE)
Wireless Communication Networks
Dr Michael Neve (ECSE)
Wireless Charging
Dr Grant Covic (ECSE)
Computer Programmes
Professor John Hosking (Computer Science – CS), Dr Bruce MacDonald (ECSE)
Agricultural Robots
Prof. Bruce MacDonald (ECSE); Dr. Henry Williams (ECSE); Dr Trevor Gee (ECSE), Dr Mahla Nejati (ECSE), David Smith (ECSE), Dr. Ho Seok Ahn (ECSE); JongYoon Lim (ECSE); Dr. Jamie Bell (ECSE)