Karim Abdel-Malek
 

Karim Abdel-Malek is a professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical and industrial engineering, as well as the director of the Center for Computer Aided Design (CCAD) and the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) at The University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA. Dr. Abdel-Malek is the founder and director of the Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) program at the Center for Computer Aided Design, where he manages a multi-million dollar program funded by the US Army towards developing novel technologies for simulating humans in the digital world to help accomplish the US Army Transformation mission. The VSR program comprises 35 people (9 faculty members, 8 professional staff members, 15 graduate students, and a number of undergraduate students). Dr. Abdel-Malek has developed a large well-equipped laboratory for conducting state-of-the-art research. He is internationally recognized for his work on swept volumes and robot manipulator kinematics. His research is in real-time kinematics and dynamics of robotics. Dr. Abdel-Malek is the founder of VizTek, Inc., a leader in virtual reality and military simulation. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in robotics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Jordan. He has authored or co-authored over 100 technical papers in the field and has two US patents. He is the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, the IASTE Scholarship, the John T. Parsons Outstanding Manufacturing Engineer award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), the 2001 Arch T. Colwell best paper award from the Society of Automotive Engineers for his pioneering work on "Understanding the workspace of the upper extremities," and the 2004 Outstanding Paper Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He was nominated to the Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Engineers, and he serves on several national and international conference committees and review panels. Dr. Abdel-Malek is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Human Modeling and Simulation.