Dr. Herman Herman

Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer

Herman leads one of the premier Robotics R&D Centers in the world and is a rare blend of executive and engineering leadership. He is Director of the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), a semi-independent business unit of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, the largest and first robotics department among US universities. Under his leadership, NREC has delivered over $800M of direct sales to its Fortune 500 customers. 

He co-founded Carnegie Foundry in 2019 to accelerate industry adoption of autonomous robotics and autonomy systems by bringing industry leaders closer to the IP and advances that have the potential to strengthen, enhance, and expand business success. Herman received his Ph.D. in Robotics from CMU and immediately began work at a newly opened robotics R&D center. He has been at NREC since its inception 25 years ago and after an illustrious career as an engineer, was subsequently promoted to Director of NREC in 2015.

As a technical leader, he is a prolific inventor with multiple robotics systems and dozens of patents in autonomous robotics system, simulation, perception, and imaging to his credit. As NREC Director, he has developed and overseen the design and delivery of more than two dozen highly complex robotic systems for commercial and non-commercial applications that he took all the way from original concepts to working prototypes and commercial products. 

Herman has startup experience going back to the 1990’s including a 360-vision system for a Virtual Reality company and more recent instances with young companies commercializing technology he developed at NREC.

Few in the industry have a deeper understanding of every aspect of robotics development, from engineering development, business development, strategic issues and team building (even with his impressive list of accomplishments, attracting and keeping world-class engineering talent in recent years may be his proudest achievement). As such, Herman is a highly sought-after advisor to many corporate innovation executives, public sector leaders, as well as startup boards.