Emek Küçüktabak
Scientist at Honda Research Institute USA, Inc.
San Jose, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolEmek Küçüktabak is a robotics scientist specializing in dexterous manipulation and online learning for multi-fingered systems, currently driving research at the Honda Research Institute in San Jose. With eight years of experience spanning PhD work at Northwestern and an MS from ETH Zurich, he blends rigorous academic foundations with hands-on development of real-time control stacks in C++ and ROS/Gazebo. His background includes designing interaction force controllers for exoskeletons, bilateral teleoperation frameworks that mediate safe human–human physical interaction, and supervision of master’s projects—skills that bridge rehabilitation robotics and industrial manipulation. Emek’s work repeatedly focuses on haptic transparency and safety-aware hierarchical control, reflecting a rare combination of control theory, simulation, and applied human-robot interaction. Notably, he has moved between industry internships and lab research to translate novel teleoperation concepts into practical implementations. Based in the Bay Area, he brings a global training background and a track record of shipping open, reproducible robotics software.
8 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
BS Major, Mechanical Engineering, 3.95/4.00, BS Major, Mechanical Engineering, 3.95/4.00 at Middle East Technical UniversityMechanical Sciences and Engineering, Mechanical Sciences and Engineering at Tokyo Institute of TechnologyDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern UniversityMaster of Science - MS, Mechanical Engineering, 5.84/6.00, Master of Science - MS, Mechanical Engineering, 5.84/6.00 at ETH Zurich
Github Skills (28)
gazebosim10
robot10
robotics9
ros9
cpp8
solver8
bus8
model-predictive-control7
svm7
arduino-library7
webots7
quadratic-programming6
optimization6
arduino5
convex-optimization5
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
ponsLab/CANOpenRobotController
May 2020 - May 2023
CORC: free and open source robot development software stack in C++
Contributions:1 PR, 316 pushes, 75 branches in 3 years
roboticscppsoftware-stackwebotsrobot
lagadic/door_handle_detection
Apr 2018 - Dec 2020
Contributions:2 PRs in 2 years 8 months
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