RAS Initiates Developing Country Faculty Engagement Program

After a successful pilot, RAS in 2021 launched an expanded Developing Country Faculty Engagement Program. The goal of the program is to help faculty in developing countries compete successfully in publishing their research at top RAS conferences and journals by connecting them with assigned RAS mentors.


Priority for acceptance to the program was given to faculty members from a university or college located in an IEEE identified developing country. Applicants were also required to be RAS members with research experience in robotics and automation.


Each developing country faculty member (the mentee) will be supported for up to two years to work with a mentor. RAS will fund the collaboration according to an approved proposal and budget submitted by the mentee and mentor.


Some of the responsibilities of the mentee include:

  • Write co-authored RAS conference/journal papers (with mentor) based on research
  • Write a paper as a lead author towards the end of the mentorship period
  • Become involved in the mentor’s research activities, including group meetings and seminars
  • Create or expand a local RAS student chapter
  • Visit mentor’s lab (if possible) and regularly join mentor’s lab meetings
  • Attend an RAS conference to present a paper
  • Establish collaboration with researchers during an RAS conference
  • Yearly joint report by the mentor and mentee regarding their accomplishments

2021 Awardees


MENTEE

MENTOR

PROJECT

Moctar Mossi Idrissa

Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey, Niger

Volkan Isler

University of Minnesota, USA

Crops/Weeds Classification from Aerial Imagery

Koena Mukherjee

National Institute of Technology, Silchar, India

Nancy Amato and 

Marco Morales

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

Task and Motion Planning for search and rescue operation with a particular focus on sampling-based methods

Issarapong Khuankrue

King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand

Subramanian Ramamoorthy

University of Edinburgh, UK

Teaching the Robot by Guidance: Developing the human-robot collaboration with a cognitive architecture model

Syed Tanweer Shah Bukhari

University of South Asia, Pakistan

Emily Hand and

David Feil-Seifer

University of Nevada, Reno, USA

Control Framework for Human Robot Interaction using Cognitive Robots

Hassan Jaleel

Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan

Jeff S. Shamma

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA 

Distributed Multi-robot Coordination Under Adversarial Environments

Francisco Cuellar

Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Peru

Marcelo H Ang Jr

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Autonomous robots in underground mining: the implementation and validation of mobile robots to identify risks of falling objects in underground mining


The following RAS Volunteers were instrumental in creating and implementing this program. 


  • Jyh-Ming Lien, George Mason University - USA
  • Tony Maciejewski, Colorado State University - USA
  • Ron Lumia - Texas, USA

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