Kenneth Yigael Goldberg (born 1961) is an American artist, writer, inventor, and researcher in the field of robotics and automation. He is professor and chair of the industrial engineering and operations research department at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at Berkeley, with joint appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), Art Practice, and the School of Information. Goldberg also holds an appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. Background Goldberg was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, where his parents taught at Mayflower Private School, and grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Goldberg's father worked as an engineer, and Ken would work on projects with his father. Goldberg expressed an interest in art during high school, but his parents suggested he study something more practical. He received a BS in electrical engineering and BS in economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. Goldberg also received his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1990. While studying abroad in Edinburgh, Goldberg took a course on artificial intelligence that began his interest in robotics and their artistic potential. He then taught in the department of computer science at the University of Southern California from 1991–1995 and was visiting faculty in 2000 at MIT. Career Robotics Goldberg and his students have published over 170 peer-reviewed technical papers on algorithms for Robotics, Automation, and social information filtering. Goldberg leads the UC Berkeley Automation Sciences Lab, which pursues research in Cloud Robotics and Automation, Social Information Retrieval using geometric algorithms, and Algorithmic Automation for Feeding, Fixturing, Grasping, with an emphasis on geometric algorithms that minimize sensing and actuation. In his PhD dissertation, Goldberg developed the first algorithm for orienting (feeding) polygonal parts and proved that the algorithm can be used to orient any part up to rotational symmetry. He also patented the kinematically yielding gripper, a new robot gripper that complies passively to hold parts securely without sensing. Goldberg is Co-Founder and editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. His research has resulted in eight United States patents. Goldberg is credited with developing the first robot with web interface (August 1994). His subsequent project, the Telegarden, allowed remote visitors, via the Internet, to view, water, and plant seeds in a living garden. This project was online continuously for nine years