Sertac Karaman

In 2007 he received bachelor of science degrees in both mechanical engineering and computer engineering from Istanbul Technical University in Turkey.⁠[1]

He worked on MIT’s driverless car for the DARPA Urban Challenge and later recalled that the public saw it as little more than a novel academic project.⁠[2]

He earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2009 and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT in 2012.⁠[3]

In May 2011 he and Emilio Frazzoli posted the paper Sampling-based Algorithms for Optimal Motion Planning on arXiv, showing that the solution cost of widely used sampling-based path-planning algorithms converges to a non-optimal value and introducing the provably asymptotically optimal PRM* and RRT* algorithms; the paper was marked as forthcoming in the International Journal of Robotics Research.⁠[4]

From fall 2012 he taught in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, later as an associate professor, working on robotics and control theory with applications including driverless cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, distributed aerial surveillance systems and air traffic control.⁠[1]

He received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2014 and an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award in 2015, after an NVIDIANVIDIANVIDIA is an American semiconductor and computing technology company that provides graphics processing units, artificial intelligence infrastructure, networking interconnects, and computing software, and is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker NVDA.Open the full entry Fellowship in 2011 and the AIAA Wright Brothers Graduate Award in 2012.⁠[5]

In 2015 he co-founded Optimus Ride, a Boston-based MIT spinoff developing self-driving vehicle technology.⁠[6]

In October 2016, Optimus Ride raised a $5.25 million seed round led by NextView Ventures and FirstMark Capital, with Nvidia among other participants; as co-founder, president and chief scientist, he said the company aimed to build new transportation systems based on Level 4 autonomy.⁠[7]

In January 2017, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society gave him its Early Career Award “for contributions to motion planning and control algorithms for robots and autonomous vehicles.”⁠[8]

In March 2017 he received the Office of Naval Research’s 2017 Young Investigator Award, a program supporting scientists and engineers in their first or second tenure-track appointment who show exceptional promise for creative research.⁠[9]

He co-founded Optimus Ride with Ramiro Almeida, Ryan Chin, Albert Huang and Jenny Larios Berlin; in June 2017 the company had just moved into a 20,000-square-foot facility in Boston’s Seaport District. He said: “Optimus Ride is a true MIT spinoff.”⁠[2]

By February 2019, Optimus Ride was running seven self-driving cars at the Union Point development in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, paid for by the developer as a resident amenity; the company had raised $23.25 million in two rounds and employed nearly 100 people. He was then an MIT associate professor as well as Optimus Ride’s president and chief scientist.⁠[10]

In June 2019, the MIT School of Engineering announced 17 faculty members granted tenure, including him, then the Class of 1948 Career Development Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.⁠[11]

On August 7, 2019, New York City’s first self-driving shuttle service, operated by Optimus Ride, launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with six autonomous six-seat shuttles offering free rides around a one-mile loop.⁠[12]

On May 20, 2020, he appeared on episode 97 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, whose summary described him as an MIT professor and co-founder of the autonomous vehicle company Optimus Ride; the outline covered autonomous flying versus driving, the role of simulation in robotics, game theory, autonomous vehicle company strategies, Waymo, Tesla and Optimus Ride timelines, lidar and fast autonomous flight.⁠[13]

On July 1, 2021, he became director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), MIT’s longest continuously running lab, succeeding John Tsitsiklis; LIDS was founded in 1940 as the Servomechanism Lab.⁠[6]

Optimus Ride was acquired by Magna in 2021.⁠[14]

Through the deal Magna acquired the MIT-born self-driving startup’s talent and intellectual property, and it began integrating the Optimus team and technology into its plans.⁠[15]

In October 2021, MIT and Amazon established the Science Hub, administered by the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and focused first on AI and robotics research; he later became faculty director of the Amazon MIT Science Hub.⁠[16][3]

In January 2023, research by Soumya Sudhakar, co-advised by him and Vivienne Sze, appeared in IEEE Micro, estimating that 1 billion autonomous vehicles driving one hour a day with 840-watt onboard computers would produce emissions comparable to today’s data centers.⁠[17]

In March 2023, a LIDS team including him unveiled WiSwarm, which configures ordinary Wi-Fi networks to prioritize the freshest data and keep multiple vehicle-tracking drones on task; the work was to be presented at IEEE INFOCOM that May.⁠[18]

In August 2023, as senior author with Ezra Tal and Gilhyun Ryou, he published trajectory-planning and control algorithms for fixed-wing tailsitter aircraft that can plan complex maneuvers such as loops and rolls in real time. He said: “the kind of autonomy technology we developed suddenly makes them available in many applications.”⁠[19]

As of October 2026, his personal website lists him as professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, director of LIDS, co-director of Mission Innovation Experimental (MIx) and director of the Amazon MIT Science Hub, and as a board member and secretary of the Robotics: Science and Systems Foundation.⁠[14]

Personal website: Public link: https://karaman.mit.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

X: Public account: https://x.com/SertacKaraman (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sertac-karaman/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems: Official website: https://lids.mit.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[14]