Ravi Balasubramanian

Dr. Ravi Balasubramanian is an Assistant Professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University, where he directs the Robotics and Human Control Systems Laboratory. He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore with top honors and his PhD from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. He did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Washington in computational neuroscience and biomechanics. He then was a research scientist in Yale University developing novel mechanisms for robotic hands. He has also led a personal-robotics project at Intel Labs Seattle.

Dr. Balasubramanian’s work has received the following awards: the National Science Foundation CAREER grant in 2016, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Neuromusculoskeletal Injuries Research Award in 2016, Best Manipulation Paper Finalist award from the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 2016, the Outstanding Researcher Award from the NIH National Center for Simulation in Rehabilitation Research in 2013, the Best Student Paper finalist award at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 2004, the OSU Impact Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2017, the Blue Ribbon Poster Presentation award from the Orthopedic Research Society in 2017. He also collaborates with local industry for advancing manufacturing operations using robotics technology.

He has been at Oregon State since 2011.

Dr. Balasubramanian's research interests lie at the intersection of robotics and computational neuroscience and biomechanics. He pioneers the unique idea of “simultaneous bio-inspiration and robo-inspiration”. Specifically, he simultaneously draws inspiration from the human control system to advance robotic systems and use robotic systems to develop a stronger understanding of the human body and improve quality of life.