Iman Soltani, PhD
Director, LARA Lab
Assistant Professor
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, Davis
Iman Soltani is an assistant professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a faculty member in graduate groups of the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Davis. His research spans the interface of artificial intelligence, instrumentation, controls, and design, with a focus on machine learning and robotic systems.
Before joining UC Davis, he worked at the Ford Greenfield Labs in Palo Alto, CA, where he founded and led the Advanced Automation Laboratory. He earned his bachelor's, master's, and PhD in mechanical engineering from Tehran Polytechnic (Iran), the University of Ottawa (Canada), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), respectively.
He holds more than 18 patents and has authored over 47 journal and conference publications on topics ranging from medical imaging to autonomous driving, high-speed nanorobotics, dexterous bimanual robotics, machinery health monitoring, and precision positioning systems.
His research has been featured in prominent outlets such as The Boston Globe, Elsevier Materials Today, ScienceDaily, and MIT News. Among his numerous awards are the MIT Carl G. Sontheimer Award and National Instruments' Engineering Impact Award.