Associate Professor, Computer Science & Engineering

Emanuel Todorov, Associate Professor, graduated from MIT in 1998 with a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience. He joined the University of Washington from the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego.

The real-time control of a complex musculo-skeletal system such as the human body requires the generation of thousands of control signals per second. Humans' ability to accomplish difficult tasks - in the face of noise, delays, uncertainty, and constantly changing circumstances - suggests that these control signals are chosen rather intelligently and to a large extent online. Todorov’s research focus is intelligent control in biological and artificial systems. He combines experimental and computational methods to investigate how the brain controls the body in a variety of motor tasks. He also develops biologically-inspired control algorithms which aim to solve complex problems beyond the reach of traditional control theory.

See Emanuel Todorov's Movement Control Laboratory Web site.