Dr. Madeline Gannon is a multidisciplinary designer inventing better ways to communicate with machines. She blends techniques in art, design, computer science, and robotics to forge new futures for human-robot relations. Also known as “The Robot Whisperer”, Gannon specializes in convincing robots to do things they were never intended to do: from transforming giant industrial robots into living, breathing mechanical creatures, to taming hordes of autonomous machines to behave like a pack of animals.
Gannon believes that technology is a cultural medium, and tunes her work to engage communities across science and society. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Copernicus Science Centre, and has been exhibited at international cultural institutions, published at academic conferences, and profiled at global media outlets, such as the BBC, the Guardian, FT, the Science Channel, WIRED, FastCompany, Dezeen, and The Verge.
Dr. Gannon is a 2022 Knight Foundation New Work Awardee, a World Economic Forum Cultural Leader, and a former Robotics & AI Researcher at NVIDIA and Artist in Residence at ETH Zurich, Autodesk Pier 9, and the Carnegie Mellon STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. Analytics Insight has named her a ‘Top 10 Women in Robotics Industry’ and ‘World’s 50 Most Renowned Women in Robotics’. Gannon holds a M.Arch from Florida International University, and a Ph.D in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
