James McLurkin — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

Winner of the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Currently works as Maker Extraordinaire at Kid-in-the-Box Consulting (freelance) since 2023.
Led engineering teams to build two multi-robot swarms, each with over 100 robots, including the DARPA-funded Swarm project at iRobot.
Served as a Sr. Hardware Engineer at Google from 2015 to 2023, developing new gizmos and contributing to AIY Projects.
Was an engineering assistant professor at Rice University, directing the Multi-Robot Systems Lab.
Holds a Ph.D. and S.M. in Computer Science from MIT and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley.

Biography

James McLurkin is a distinguished robotics engineer, researcher, and educator, recognized for his contributions to multi-robot systems and hardware development. He is a winner of the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize. Currently, he operates as Maker Extraordinaire at Kid-in-the-Box Consulting on a freelance basis. His career includes significant roles at Google, where he served as a Sr.