Dr. Aslan Miriyev

​​Department of Mechanical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering Sciences

My life before BGU: 

Mevoot HaNegev high school in Kibbutz Shoval in the northern Negev was a home for my high school studies in Israel. I received my BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees in Materials Engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. 

After that, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University in the City of New York, where I worked on soft material actuators for soft robotics. As the next step in my career, I was a scientist in the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) next to Zurich. In that capacity, I worked at the interface between Empa and Imperial College London on establishing the new Materials and Technology Center of Robotics.

​My research:

My research focuses on the new domain of Physical Artificial Intelligence – Physical AI, or PAI. It is about how to create machines that perform similarly to living organisms. We study how to develop the physical AI of robots' 'bodies' and interface it with the digital AI of their 'brains.' PAI is a multidisciplinary domain. The new PAI Lab at BGU is a home for students and researchers from various disciplines interested in contributing to creating symbiotic and sustainable human-nature-robot ecosystems of the future. 

​Why BGU?

As a BGU alumnus, becoming a BGU faculty member after gaining international experience in the US and Europe means completing a long circle and starting a new chapter of activity for the benefit of the world and society.​

​​An insight from my research:

Combining skills from different disciplines and bold and active work at their intersection may allow for the creation of symbiotic and sustainable ecosystems of humans, nature, and robots.

Something that doesn’t appear on my CV:

I moved to Israel on my own at the age of 15 as a student of the Na’ale program. I spent three years in Kibbutz Shoval, enjoying the (old-style) Kibbutz environment and doing my high school studies.​

When I grow up:

As I grew up, my interests changed from cars and machines to biology, veterinary science, and medicine. Then it developed into academic studies in engineering and matured into a synergetic merging of machines and natural sciences in my research.​

In brief​​​: