Research Scientist

Dr. Luigi Penco is a roboticist at IHMC and focuses on autonomy, user interfaces and teleoperation of humanoid robots. He has been working as a lead developer of autonomous behaviors and human-machine interfaces in several high-profile projects supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Army Research Lab (ARL), and NASA, all aimed at advancing humanoid robotic capabilities.

Dr. Penco serves as the Principal Investigator (PI) for NASA’s Valkyrie project, which leverages IHMC software to enhance the development of the Valkyrie robot and to enable NASA to independently lead and oversee research involving the robot, with support from IHMC. Additionally, he is a Co-PI on the Squadbot project funded by ONR, which focuses on developing a robotic platform and autonomy algorithms for building exploration. He is also Co-PI on the explosive breaching project supported by ARL, which aims to enhance the safety of dismounted infantry operations by using robots to breach doors.

He has contributed to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society as an associate editor for several conferences, including IROS 2024, Humanoids 2024, and ICRA 2025. He has also been involved in organizing events such as a workshop at ICRA 2021 and the Humanoids 2024 conference.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Roma Tre University in 2015 and a master’s in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from La Sapienza University of Rome in 2018. In 2022 he received a PhD in Computer Science from Université de Lorraine, while conducting his doctoral studies at Inria Nancy Grand-Est.

During his doctoral research at Inria, he has contributed to the EU H2020 AnDy project on human-robot collaboration. He has developed a teleoperation system for the humanoid robot iCub with the goal of providing an intuitive way to realize complex tasks and to convey collaborative policies to the robot.

He likes avatar technologies, urban style, and more generally being involved in things that look futuristic.