At a ceremony recently held Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, the Centro Universitário SENAI CIMATEC bestowed an honorary doctorate on Professor Frank Kirchner, leader of the Robotics Innovation Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Professor of Robotics at the University of Bremen.
Appreciation for partnership with DFKI
Professor Kirchner received the distinction “Doutor Honoris Causa” for his ground breaking research in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. The award is a token of appreciation for the way the partnership with DFKI has advanced research and development activities with SENAI CIMATEC and local industry, and in particular for the founding of the Brazilian Institute of Robotics (BIR).
Medal for outstanding services
The President of Centro Universitário SENAI CIMATEC, Dr. Leone Peter Correia da Silva Andrade, presented the award at a festive ceremony in front of some 500 representatives of politics, science, and industry. It is the first time SENAI CIMATEC has granted an honorary doctorate. During the ceremony, the President of the confederation of industry in the state of Bahia (Federação das Indústrias do Estado da Bahia – FIEB), Antonio Ricardo Alvarez Alban, also awarded Kirchner a medal for special services: And Rosane Zagatti, Technology Manager at the Shell corporation and member of the selection committee, additionally presented the Bremen scientist with the medal of honor awarded by SENAI CIMATEC.
Strengthening cooperation
“The honorary doctorate is a great honor and distinction for me”, says Kirchner. “At the same time, it’s an incentive to strengthen and intensify further the cooperation between German and Brazilian universities and institutes. This is something I will support to the utmost in my teaching and basic research as a professor at the University of Bremen as well as in my capacity as director in the area of applied research and industrial innovation at DFKI, and of course as member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy in the area of intercultural, social, and economic cooperation.”
About Prof. Kirchner:
Prof.Dr. Frank Kirchner leads the Bremen branch of DFKI, where he is responsible for the Robotics Innovation Center with more than 100 employees. Founded in 2006 as a DFKI laboratory, the research area builds on the basic research carried out in the robotics research group led by Kirchner at the University of Bremen. The university professor was appointed leader of the Chair for Robotics in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science in 2002. In 2013 he became Scientific Director of the Brazilian Institute of Robotics, and in 2015 he was elected a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Frank Kirchner obtained his doctorate from the University of Bonn, worked as lead scientist for the Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung in Sankt Augustin as well as in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, where he also built up a branch of the Fraunhofer Institute of Autonomus Intelligent Systems.
