Vivian Chu (born c. 1987) is an American roboticist and entrepreneur, specializing in the field of human-robot interaction.
[1] At Penn, she worked under the mentorship of Katherine Kuchenbecker in the Haptics Research Group as a part of the GRASP Lab.
[7] After completing her Master's in 2013, Chu had a summer internship at Honda Research Institute and continued graduate training at Georgia Tech.
[8] Her work focused on building algorithms that enable robots to reason about action effects and interact with their environments in an adaptable way.
[13] She leads a diverse team of roboticists who build robots that feature autonomous mobile manipulation, social intelligence, and human-guided learning abilities, inspired by Chu's graduate discoveries.
[17][18] It possesses more human-like features including a face that can visually communicate social cues and a head and torso.
[19] It has won accolades including being named as Time's 100 Best Inventions (2019),[20] World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer (2021),[21] and Newsweek America's Greatest Disruptors (2021).