Manocha Elected to National Academy of Inventors

Distinguished University Professor Dinesh Manocha, who holds appointments in computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, is one of two UMD faculty just elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Manocha and Distinguished University Professor Lai-Xi Wang from chemistry and biochemistry are among 162 new NAI fellows who represent 118 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes worldwide and collectively hold over 4,600 U.S. patents.

They join 12 other current faculty and staff members from UMD previously elected to the NAI, which was founded in 2010.

Manocha is an internationally recognized researcher in computer graphics, virtual reality, robotics and GPU computing. Throughout his career, he has transitioned his research into marketable technology through his research groups and startup companies.

His spinoff company, Impulsonic, was acquired in 2016 by Valve, a leading digital distributor for PC gaming, resulting in the company’s sound rendering system being incorporated in Valve’s Steam Audio SDK. His technology is also incorporated into Audio SDK and VR products produced by Facebook/Meta Reality Labs.

A major current focus is robotics and artificial intelligence. Robot motion planning and multi-agent simulation, including the first real-time high-DoF (degrees of freedom) proximity systems and planners, have been developed into a robot operating system used by many in the academic community and in industry. His work in robotics, particularly in autonomous mobile robot navigation, has resulted in collaborations with Amazon and the U.S. Army Research Lab.

Go here to read the complete news release on Maryland Today.