Dr. William L. "Red" Whittaker is a robotics professor and the Director of the Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Whittaker has also founded multiple companies including Red Zone Robotics and Astrobotic Technologies, and is now serving as Chairman and Chief Scientist at Astrobotic.
He has an extensive record of successful developments of robots for craft, labor and hazardous duty. Examples include robots in field environments such as mines, work sites and natural terrain. Dr. Whittaker's portfolio includes the development of computer architectures for controlling mobile robots; modeling and planning for non-repetitive tasks; complex problems of objective sensing in random and dynamic environments; and integration of complete field robot systems.

Dr. Whittaker is widely known for his achievements in the robotics community. A few of his awards recognitions include:

ASCE Columbia Medal, IEEE Simon Ramo Medal, Engelberger Technology Award, Design News Special Achievement Award, Hero of Manufacturing Award, Aviation & Space Technology Award.
Dr. Whittaker has advised twenty-six Ph.D. students, has sixteen patents, and has authored or co-authored over 200 publications.