Utku Culha

Utku Culha has received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bilkent University, Turkey from the Computer Engineering Department. He started his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in ETH-Zurich, Switzerland with Prof. Fumiya Iida and then moved to the University of Cambridge, UK to help establish the Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory. After completing his Ph.D. in the design and control of physically adaptive soft robots, Utku joined the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. Combining fellowships from the Max Planck Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he worked with Prof. Metin Sitti at MPI on the control of small-scale soft robots, statistical machine learning on physical systems, and the control of self-assembling robotic elements. Utku joined the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) as the Chief of Science in April 2021. Here, Utku coordinates the joint research efforts of multiple departments and research laboratories on the human-centered robotics and machine intelligence for the future of work, health, mobility, and environment.