Professor Tarek M. Sobh received the B.Sc. in Engineering degree with
honors in Computer Science and Automatic Control from the Faculty of
Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt in 1988, and M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in Computer and
Information Science from the School of Engineering,
University of Pennsylvania
in 1989 and 1991, respectively. He is currently the Vice President for
Graduate Studies and Research, Dean of the
School of Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Engineering and
Computer Science at the
University of Bridgeport, Connecticut; the Founding Director of the
Interdisciplinary Robotics, Intelligent Sensing, and Control (RISC)
laboratory; and a Professor of
Computer Engineering, Computer Science,
Electrical Engineering and
Mechanical Engineering.
He was the Vice Provost from 2006-2008, Interim Dean of the School of
Business, Director of
External
Engineering Programs, Interim Chairman of
Computer Science and Computer Engineering, and Chairman of the
Department of Technology Management at the
University of Bridgeport . He was
an Associate Professor of
Computer Science and Computer Engineering at the
University of
Bridgeport from 1995 -- 1999, a Research Assistant Professor of Computer
Science at the Department
of Computer Science ,
University of Utah from 1992 -- 1995, and a Research Fellow at the
General Robotics and
Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory of the
University of Pennsylvania
from 1989 -- 1991. He was the Founding Chairman of the
Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems Technical Committee of the
IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society from 1992-1999, and the Founding Chairman of the
Prototyping
Technical Committee of the
IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society from 1999-2001.
His background is in the fields of computer science and engineering,
control theory, robotics, automation, manufacturing, AI, computer vision and
signal processing.
Research Interests and Activities
Dr. Sobh's current research interests include reverse engineering and
industrial inspection, CAD/CAM and active sensing under uncertainty, robots
and electromechanical systems prototyping, sensor-based distributed control
schemes, unifying tolerances across sensing, design, and manufacturing,
hybrid and discrete event control, modeling, and applications, and mobile
robotic manipulation. He has published over 180 refereed journal and
conference papers, and book chapters in these and other areas, in addition
to 11 books. Professor Sobh is also interested in developing theoretical and
experimental tools to aid performing adaptive goal-directed robotic sensing
for modeling, observing and controlling interactive agents in unstructured
environments.
Dr. Sobh serves on the editorial boards of 12 journals, and has served as
Chair, Technical Program Chair and on the program committees of over 135
international conferences and workshops in the Robotics, Automation,
Sensing, Computing, Systems , Control, Online Engineering and Engineering
Education areas.
Dr. Sobh has presented more than 75 keynote speeches, invited talks and
lectures, colloquia and seminars at research meetings, University
departments, research centers, and companies.
The current research and development activities at the RISC laboratory
include work on tolerance representation and determination for inspection
and manufacturing, hybrid controllers for robotics and automation, service
robots, prototyping and synthesis of controllers, simulators, and monitors
for manipulators, algorithms for uncertainty computation from sense data,
and web-based prototyping, control synthesis, and simulation of robots.
Prof. Sobh has supervised 35 award-winning graduate and undergraduate
students working on different projects within robotics, prototyping,
computer vision, control, and manufacturing; in addition to more than 300
undergraduate and graduate students working on their B.S. projects, Master's
thesis or Ph.D. dissertations. Dr. Sobh is active in consulting and
providing service to many industrial organizations and companies. He has
consulted for several companies in the U.S., Switzerland, India, Malaysia
and Egypt, to support projects in robotics, automation, manufacturing,
sensing, numerical analysis, and control. He has also worked at Philips
Laboratories in New York, and a number of companies in Egypt.
Dr. Sobh has been awarded over 40 research grants to pursue his work in
robotics, automation, manufacturing, and sensing. Dr. Sobh is a Fellow of
the African Academy of Sciences and he is also a Member of the Connecticut
Academy of Science and Engineering. Dr. Sobh has received many awards and
merits in recognition of his research and scholarly activities in
engineering, education and computing and his services to the academic
community. Dr. Sobh is a Licensed Professional Electrical Engineer (P.E.) in
the State of Utah, a Certified Manufacturing Engineer (CMfgE) by the Society
of Manufacturing Engineers, a Certified Professional Manager (C.M.) by the
Institute of Certified Professional Managers at James Madison University, a
Certified Reliability Engineer (C.R.E.) by the American Society for Quality,
a member of Tau Beta Pi (The Engineering Honor Society), Sigma Xi (The
Scientific Research Society), Phi Beta Delta (The International Honor
Society), Upsilon Pi Epsilon (The National Honor Society for the Computing
Sciences, Phi Kappa Phi (The Academic Honor Society) and an honorary member
of Delta Mu Delta (The National Honor Society for Business Administration).
Dr. Sobh is a member, senior member, founding or board member of several
professional organizations including; ACM, IEEE, the International Society
for Optical Engineering (SPIE), the National Society of Professional
Engineers (NSPE), the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Society of
Engineering Education (ASEE), the American Society of Quality (ASQ), the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society of
Manufacturing Engineers (SME), the International Association of Online
Engineering (IAOE), the Discovery Museum, the Connecticut Pre-Engineering
Program (CPEP), the Northeast Center for Computers and Information Systems
Security (NECCISS), the International E-Learning Association (IELA), and the
Society for Industrial Computing. Dr. Sobh is a graduate of Victoria
College, Alexandria, Egypt, in 1983 and a life member of the Old Victorians
Association. He is also a life Member of the Egyptian Engineering Syndicate,
a licensed engineer of the Egyptian Engineers Association and the Alexandria
Engineering Organization.