Assistant Professor
Contact Information
- Office Address: Min H. Kao Building, Room 550
- Phone: 865-974-1712
- E-mail: rbburns@utk.edu
Education
- PhD in Computer Science, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany, 2024
- MS in Biomedical Engineering, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 2017
- BS in Biomedical Engineering, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 2015
Biography
Rachael Bevill Burns, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, performs research focusing on creating intelligent robots with touch perception and emotional expressiveness for therapy and care settings.
Burns earned her PhD in computer science from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart, Germany, where she first started as a Whitaker International Fellow in 2017. Burns earned her Bachelor and Master of Science in biomedical engineering in 2015 and 2017 at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Burns was named a 2023 RSS Pioneer and a 2021 HRI Pioneer for her doctoral work on creating a Haptic Empathetic Robot Animal (HERA) for children with autism. Burns also received an honorable mention for the MPI-IS Outstanding Female PhD Student Prize.
Research