Marc Raibert is the visionary founder of Boston Dynamics, renowned for creating the world’s most advanced and lifelike robots, including Spot, Atlas, and Stretch. Drawing inspiration from the agility and adaptability of animals, Raibert’s work bridges engineering, biomechanics, and artificial intelligence to produce machines capable of real-world mobility and dexterity.
Before launching Boston Dynamics in 1992, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded the influential Leg Laboratory. His research established the foundations for dynamic legged locomotion and continues to influence robotics, automation, and AI-driven design.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering since 2008, Raibert speaks globally about innovation, human–robot collaboration, and the future of robotics in society.
He spent 18 years as an academic researcher and tenured faculty at CalTech/JPL, Carnegie Mellon University, and MIT. He founded the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic robots and that set the stage for ground-breaking work on dynamic robots. He founded and spent 30 years leading Boston Dynamics, arguably the most influential pure-play robotics research organization in the world, having produced robots such as BigDog, Atlas and Stretch, and that now delivers Spot robots to users around the world. In 2020, Boston Dynamics was acquired by Hyundai Motor Group.
Currently, Raibert is the Executive Director of The AI Institute, a new research lab focused on the most important problems in robotics and AI.
Raibert is highly visible in the robotics community, having given numerous keynote lectures and interviews, including TED, 60 Minutes, Turing Institute, WebSummit, Wired 25, MARS, REMARS, and many others. Raibert is a Founding Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2008, was named a Pioneer in Robotics by IEEE in 2022, and received the Engelberger Award in 2022. Marce was included in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI. Two of Raibert’s robots were inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame.