Nancy Amato

Paraosol Lab Co-Director. Abel Bliss Professor and School Director, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science

Nancy M. Amato is Director of the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received undergraduate degrees in Mathematical Sciences and Economics from Stanford, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois, respectively. Before returning to her alma mater in 2019, she was Regents Professor at Texas A&M University and Senior Director of Engineering Honors Programs.

Amato is known for algorithmic contributions to robotics task and motion planning, computational biology and geometry, and parallel and distributed computing. She has graduated 30 PhD students, with most going to faculty positions (13) or research positions in government or industry (9), and has worked with 30+ master’s students, 100+ undergraduate researchers, and 10+ high school students. A majority of her students are from groups underrepresented in computing.

Amato has served in leadership roles including CRA Board Chair (2021-2025), IEEE Robotics and Automation Society President (2026-2027), and AAAS Section-T Chair (2021-2022). She is dedicated to broadening participation in computing, and has served as CRA-WP Co-Chair (2014-2017), NCWIT Academic Alliance Co-Chair (2009-2011), and has Co-Directed the CRA-WP DREU program since 2000.

Her honors include the inaugural MassRobotics Robotics Medal, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Saridis Leadership Award, the inaugural NCWIT Harrold/Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award, and the CRA Haberman Award. She is a Fellow of the AAAI, AAAS, ACM, and IEEE and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Papers with Parasol Lab:

Updated: