Chad Jenkins

Chad Jenkins is a Professor of Robotics and a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. His work aims to discover methods for computational reasoning and perception that will enable robots to effectively assist people in common human environments. Professor Jenkins' research pertains primarily to robot learning from demonstration, semantic perception, and mobile manipulation towards enabling the usability of technology by people in real situations.

Professor Jenkins is currently serving as the Vice President for Educational Activities for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Professor Jenkins was the founding Program Chair of the Robotics Major Degree Program launched in 2022 for undergraduates at the University of Michigan. He was a founding Editor-in-Chief for the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, serving from 2016 to 2024. Professor Jenkins served on the Computing Community Consortium from 2019 to 2022. Recently, he was elected Member-At-Large for the Association of Computing Machinery.

As a member of the Computing Research Association's Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP), he helped found The Skip Ellis Early Career Award in honor of Professor Clarence "Skip" Ellis, the first American Black person to earn a doctorate in computer science.

Professor Jenkins is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). He is a Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He is an alumnus of the Defense Science Study Group (2018-19).