Chakravarthini M. Saaj

Prof Chakravarthini Mini Saaj is the Global Chair in Robotic Engineering at the University of Lincoln, UK. Mini joined the University of Lincoln in September 2019 and she is the head of the Industrial Digitalisation and System Intelligence (IDSI) research group within the School of Engineering. She is a member of the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS) and the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT). Mini is a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey where, previously, she was an Associate Professor (Reader) in Robotics, the Head of Robotics and Control research group and the Director of Post Graduate Research (PhD) Programme at the Surrey Space Centre; she was with the Surrey Space Centre from 2005 to 2019. Further, Mini was a Visiting Research Associate at King's College London from 2005 to 2007 and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg, Germany from 2002-2003. As a research-active academic, Mini has coordinated and authored many successful research proposals; these were in collaboration with over forty leading national and international research groups. She has raised over £4.4M, as PI and Co-I, on Robotics and Control research projects funded by European Commission, Airbus Defence and Space, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, Innovate UK, Ceres, European Space Agency, CEOI, Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, the Nigerian Space Agency and other sources. She is an external evaluator for various funding agencies and she is active in marked-led cross-sector technology transfer applications of Robotics and Automation research spanning Agri-Food, Nuclear, Medical, Energy and Mining industries. In addition to having 108 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, she has successfully supervised 15 full-time post-doctoral Research Fellows/Associates and 11 PhD students. She continues to deliver keynote/invited lectures at various international conferences and workshops.