George A. Bekey. George A. Bekey (19 June 1928 – 17 October 2024) was an American roboticist and the professor of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.

Life and career
Bekey was born in Bratislava on 19 June 1928, before immigrating at the beginning of World War II to Bolivia before moving to the United States five years later at the age of 17 in 1945.

In 1989, Bekey became a member of the National Academy of Engineering for pioneering work in computer sciences contributing to biomedical engineering, man-machine systems, and robotics. He was also a Fellow of various professional societies.

Bekey is best known for his achievements across multiple technical fields, for which he was designated a USC University Professor, which honors the university's most accomplished, multi-disciplinary faculty. He was also affiliated with the College of Engineering at  California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he taught a course on world religions.

One of his later books is Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control from MIT Press.

Bekey died on 17 October 2024, at the age of 96.

Robot ethics
Later, he concerned himself with the ethics and social aspects of robots as they play more of a role in different aspects of human life, realising an edited text bringing together some of the key thinkers in the field including James Hughes, Selmer Bringsjord, Kevin Warwick, Peter Asaro and Noel Sharkey.

Education
 B.S. (Electrical Engineering) University of California, Berkeley, 1950.
 M.S (Engineering) University of California, Los Angeles, 1952.
 Ph.D. (Engineering) University of California, Los Angeles, 1962.

Professional organizations
President, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, 1996–97; Administrative Committee member, 2001-2007
Editor, Autonomous Robot, 1994-2007
Founding Editor, "IEEE Transactions on Robotic and Automation"
Co-General Chairman. "5th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems", 2000
Honorary Chairmen, "IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation", 2008
Member
American Association for Artificial Intelligence
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
Association for Computing Machinery
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Society for Computer Simulation

Awards
USC Presidential Medallion 
USC University Professor award
UCLA School of Engineering: Alumni Achievement in Academia
USC School of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Award
USC Computer Science Department "George A. Bekey lecture series" 
Fellow, IEEE
Fellow, American Association for Advancements of Science
Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
Fellow, American Association for Artificial Intelligence
Engelberger Award for Robotics Education, Robotics Institute of America
"Pioneer in Robotics"Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
Robotics and Automation Award, IEEE (International) 
Honorary Member, Hungarian Academy of Engineering

References

External links
 Home page
 Profile on National Academy of Engineering's Website

1928 births
2024 deaths
American roboticists
American control theorists
Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni
University of Southern California faculty
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering