Dr. Kazuo Tanie Biography

Kazuo Tanie was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. He received B.S., M.S. and Dr. Eng. from Waseda University in 1969, 1971 and 1980, respectively. In 1971, soon after graduating M.S., he entered Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, AIST-MITI. He served there Director of Cybernetics Division and Biorobotics Division at Robotics Department, and also Director of Robotics Department. Since April 1, 2001, when all MITI's laboratories were reformed, he has been the Director of Intelligent Systems Institute, The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). Also, he has been an adjunctive professor of Cooperative Graduate School at University of Tsukuba since 1992 and a visiting professor at The Advanced Research Center of Science and Technology at Waseda University since 1996. From August, 1981 to August, 1982, he was a visiting scholar of University of California at Los Angeles, and in September, 1995, a visiting professor at Scuola Superiore S. Anna in Italy. He served as the General Chair and Program Chair for several international conferences. He is Japanese contact person of International Advanced Robotics Program (IARP) and President-Elect of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society(RAS). He was a founding chairman of Robotics and Mechatronics Division in Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers(JSME) in 1988 and 1989, and a vice president of Robotics Society of Japan(RSJ) in 1999 and 2000. He is a Fellow of JSME, and a Senior Member of IEEE where he is belonging to RAS, Industrial Electronics Society and System, Man & Cybernetics Society, RSJ, Japan Society of Instrument and Control Engineers and so on. He received Joseph Engerburger Technical Award in 2001 and also several best paper awards from Japanese academic societies. His research interests include compliant robotic arm control, multifinger hand control with tactile sensors, virtual reality and its application to telerobotic systems, human friendly robotics and humanoid. He has published more than 300 papers in Japanese and international journals and international conference proceedings.