Michael Milford

• Chief Investigator
• LinkedIn Profile
• QUT
• 2014 - 2021

Professor Michael Milford conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision and is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. His research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. He is also passionate about engaging and educating all sectors of society around new opportunities and impacts from technology including robotics, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence. He currently holds the positions of Deputy Director of the QUT Centre for Robotics, Professor at QUT, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Chief Investigator at the Centre.

Michael has or is leading or co-leading projects totalling more than 45 million dollars in research and industry funding for fellowships and team grants from organizations including the Australian Research Council, Microsoft and US Air Force. His papers have won (6) or been finalists (9) for 15 best paper awards including the 2012 ICRA Best Vision paper. His citation h-index is 36, with 6607 citations as of September 2020. Michael has dual Australian-US citizenship and has lived and worked in locations including Boston, Edinburgh and London. He has collaborated with organizations including Harvard University, Boston University, Oxford University, MIT, Google Deepmind, Caterpillar, the US Air Force and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As a lifelong educational entrepreneur, Michael has written innovative textbooks for high school students for 19 years, with more than 6000 physical sales and website and YouTube views in excess of 2 million. His startup Math Thrills combines mass market entertainment and STEM education. Math Thrills has received funding from Kickstarter, QUTBluebox and the AMP Foundation, honours including the Queensland Young Tall Poppy of the Year Award, a Reimagine Education finalist (2018) award, and has been the focus of a TedXQUT talk and World Science Festival event. It has over 20 titles including The Complete Guide to AI for Kids, the STEM Storybook and Rachel Rocketeer.

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