Dr. Ron Alterovitz is the Lawrence Grossberg Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He leads the Computational Robotics Research Group, which develops artificial intelligence (AI) methods to enable robots to autonomously plan motions and perform tasks. His group’s work spans a range of applications, including medical robots, autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars, drones, etc.), personal assistance robots, and chemistry lab automation.

Dr. Alterovitz earned his B.S. with Honors from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He then conducted postdoctoral research at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center and a French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) lab in Toulouse, France. He joined UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009.

Dr. Alterovitz is co-inventor on three patents and has received multiple best paper awards at robotics and computer-assisted medicine conferences including RSS, ICRA, IROS, and MIUA. He is the recipient of an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, two UNC Computer Science Department Excellence in Teaching Awards, an NSF Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor the United States Government bestows on early-career scientists and engineers. In 2025, he was named a Fellow of the IEEE, an honor limited to the top 0.1% of the world’s largest technical professional society.

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