Krovi named ASME fellow

UB robotics expert Venkat Krovi has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Fellowship is bestowed upon members who have made significant contributions to mechanical engineering. Less than 3,500 of ASME’s approximate 140,000 members have received the honor.

Krovi, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was cited for “contributions spanning the lifecycle design and modeling to evaluation and verification of mechanical and mechatronic systems in several domains, including customized assistive devices and distributed robotic systems,” according to ASME.

As director of UB’s Automation, Robotics and Mechatronics (ARM) laboratory, Krovi’s research focuses on the lifecycle — design, modeling, analysis, control, implementation and verification — of a new generation of smart, embedded mechanical, mechatronic and robotic systems. This includes how robots work together, how humans interact with robots, surgical robots and the evolving role that robots will play in business and society.

Krovi joined the UB faculty in 2001. He co-holds two U.S. patents, has authored or co-authored nearly 140 peer-reviewed articles and supervised 10 doctoral students, 33 master’s students and numerous undergraduate students at UB. He has received more than $2.4 million in research grants from government, academia and industry.

Krovi has served on numerous committees for ASME and other scientific bodies; has organized international conferences, including ASME’s 2014 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences in 2014; and has served as editor on a handful of academic journals. At UB, he serves on the executive committee of the Techne Institute for Arts and Emerging Technologies, and as the primary liaison with the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute in Chicago.

He received a doctorate in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania.