Until 2023, Prof. Dr. Metin Sitti was the director of the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart, Germany, where he founded the department in 2014. In 2023, Metin Sitti became the President of Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a professor at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, as well as honorary professor in SimTech at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Sitti was a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA (2002-2016) and a research scientist and lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, USA (1999-2002). He received his BSc (1992) and MSc (1994) degrees in electrical and electronics engineering from Boğaziçi University, Turkey, and his Ph.D. degree (1999) in electrical engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Sitti has pioneered many research areas, including wireless miniature medical soft robots, gecko-inspired microfiber adhesives, bio-inspired miniature robots, and physical intelligence. He is an IEEE Fellow, European Center for Living Technology Fellow, member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, and member of the Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association (TASSA). As selected awards, he was named as a Highly Cited Researcher (2021), and he received the Breakthrough of the Year Award in the Engineering and Technology Category at the Falling Walls World Science Summit (2020), an ERC Advanced Grant (2019), the Rahmi Koç Medal of Science (2018), Best Paper Award at the Robotics Science and Systems Conference (2019), IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award (2014), SPIE Nanoengineering Pioneer Award (2011), Best Paper Award in the IEEE/RSJ Intelligent Robots and Systems Conference (1998, 2009), and NSF CAREER Award (2005).

Sitti has served as the Managing Director of MPI-IS during 2015-2017 and 2021. He was an executive board member of the International Max Planck Research School on Intelligent Systems (2017-2020) and member of the Perspectives Committee of the Max Planck Society (2019-2021). Also, since 2015, he has been an executive board member of the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems. Sitti is the editor-in-chief of both the journal Progress in Biomedical Engineering and the Micro-Bio Robotics journal, and an associate editor of both Science Advances and Extreme Mechanics Letters journals.

Sitti has published two books and over 500 peer-reviewed papers, over 380 of which have appeared in archival journals. These papers have been cited over 44,900 times in Google Scholar (h-index: 115). His group’s research breakthroughs have been featured in the popular press, such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Economist, Der Spiegel, Forbes, Science, New Scientist, Science News, Nature News, MIT Technology Review, and IEEE Spectrum Magazine. He has given over 220 invited keynote, plenary or distinguished seminars in universities, conferences and industry. He has over 12 issued patents and over 18 pending patents. He founded a startup (Setex Technologies Inc.) in Pittsburgh, USA in 2012 to commercialize his lab’s gecko-inspired microfiber adhesive technology as a new disruptive adhesive material (branded as Setex®) for a wide range of consumer and industrial applications.

His group is one of the core research partners of the Max Planck Queensland Center for Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices, Max Plank University of Toronto Centre for Neural Science and Technology, Max Planck-ETH Center for Learning Systems, Cyber Valley, European Centre for Living Technology, DFG Cluster of Excellence IntCDC, DFG Soft Robotics Material SPP2100 Program, DFG SPP2311 Program, and EU SOMIRO Project. 

He has supervised and mentored over 70 (26 current) PhD students and 70 (18 current) postdoctoral researchers since 2002. Over 50 of his lab alumni became a faculty or group leader at Cornell, UMich, Mayo Clinic, UIUC, Vanderbilt, Tufts, Oregon State, Virginia Tech, WPI, ASU, LSU, Texas Tech (USA); Toronto, Waterloo, McMaster (Canada); ETH Zurich, EMPA (Switzerland); MPI-IS, TUM, Univ. Stuttgart (Germany); NTU (Singapore); Tampere (Finland); Bilkent, Hacettepe (Turkey); Sheffield, Heriot-Watt, NewCastle (UK); Delft, Wageningen (Netherlands); KIST, Hanyang, PNU, Korea (S. Korea); UMich-SJJI, CityU, Tongji, NWU, GIT, BIT (China); etc. Moreover, over 30 of his lab alumni are working in industry as senior researchers at Intuitive Surgical, Apple, Intel, Google, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, McKinsey & Company, BostonDynamics, Schlumberger, 3M, Proprio Vision, Arete Associates, Setex Technologies, etc.