BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Fares J. Abu-Dakka is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Program at New York University Abu Dhabi. He earned his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Birzeit University, Palestine (2003), and pursued advanced degrees in Robotics Motion Planning, receiving a DEA and Ph.D. from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), Spain (2006, 2011). Additionally, he holds an M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from UPV (2015).

Dr. Abu-Dakka began his postdoctoral career at the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia in 2012. He then served as a Visiting Professor at Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, from 2013 to 2016, followed by a postdoctoral role at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Italy from 2016 to 2019. From 2019 to 2022, he was a Research Fellow with the Intelligent Robotics Group at Aalto University in Finland. In 2022, he joined the Technische Universität München as a Senior Scientist, where he led the Robot Learning group within the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI). In 2023, he held a position as a Lecturer and Researcher at Mondragon University, Spain, before moving to NYU Abu Dhabi in Sept. 2024 as Assistant Professor.

Dr. Abu-Dakka’s research integrates control theory, differential geometry, and machine learning to enhance robotic manipulation capabilities for improved performance and safety. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) and IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), furthering innovation and academic progress in robotics.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research lies in the intersection of control theory, differential geometry, and machine learning, in order to enhance robot manipulation performance and safety.

EDUCATION

2011 -- Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering – Robotics from UPV.

2015 -- M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from UPV.

2006 -- DEA in Mechanical Engineering – Robotics from UPV.

2003 -- B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Birzeit University