Pieter Abbeel

Overview Pieter Abbeel is a professor at UC Berkeley. His EECS faculty page gives his title as the Jim Gray Chair in Engineering. The same page identifies him as Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and Co-Director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence (BAIR) Lab.^[1] These roles connect his professorship to a named chair and to leadership positions in robot learning and artificial intelligence laboratories.^[1]

Education Abbeel earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven in Belgium in 2000. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008.^[1] His listed graduate training therefore includes both electrical engineering and computer science, with degrees from institutions in Belgium and the United States.^[1]

Appointments and roles At UC Berkeley, Abbeel is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His page lists three named roles: Jim Gray Chair in Engineering, Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab, and Co-Director of BAIR.^[1] A named chair is a faculty position that carries a specific title; here the title is the Jim Gray Chair in Engineering. Director describes leadership of the robot learning lab, while Co-Director describes shared leadership of BAIR. These titles appear together in his public faculty profile.^[1]

Awards and honors The faculty page lists awards from 2010 through 2022. In 2022 Abbeel received the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award. In 2021 he received the ACM Prize in Computing, and in 2018 he was named an IEEE Fellow.^[1] In 2018 he also received the Diane S. McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching Computer Science and a Google Faculty Research Award.^[1] In 2016 he received the CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award. In 2015 he received the Bakar Fellow Award.^[1] In 2013 he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a DARPA Young Faculty Award. In 2012 he received the RAS Early Career Award.^[1] In 2011 he received a Hellman Fellowship and a Sloan Research Fellowship, and he was named to MIT Technology Review's TR35 list. In 2010 he received an Okawa Research Grant.^[1]

Companies The faculty page states that Abbeel founded three companies: Gradescope, Covariant and Berkeley Open Arms.^[1] These names appear in his public profile alongside his academic roles and awards.^[1]

Public profile Taken together, the page presents a professor with a named chair, directorships in Berkeley laboratories, a long list of awards, and three founded companies.^[1] The listed honors include teaching recognition, early-career awards, fellowships, and the ACM Prize in Computing.^[1] The awards run from 2010 to 2022. The companies are named as Gradescope, Covariant and Berkeley Open Arms.^[1]