Didem cares about the future of the world and nature. She is a computer scientist with a Ph.D. in mechatronics who focuses on robotics and physical AI that enable machines to cooperate, collaborate, and coexist with humans and each other. She leads research on multi-agent systems, cyber-physical systems, and autonomous robots – always with an eye toward symbiotic relationships rather than purely optimized solutions. Didem is a person who does not hesitate to talk about inequalities and point out ethical concerns in technology development. She dreams of a better world and actively works on improving inequalities regardless of their nature. She is an analytical thinker with a passion for interdisciplinary research, a scientist with a future perspective, an engineer who likes problems more than solutions, and a teacher who believes in playful learning. She is also a sailor, divemaster, photographer, and drone pilot.
Didem is currently an Assistant Professor and Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University. She leads the Cyber-physical Systems Lab, directing research on data-centric methods and implementations for intelligent systems like collaborative robots, autonomous vehicles, and smart cities.
Prior to this she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Stanford University, United States and worked as a research associate at the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on data-centric methods, methodologies and implementations for cyber-physical systems. Her research interest lies in designing future intelligent systems in a more sustainable way to change the world. Before her postdoctoral experiences, she worked as a teacher, coach and supervisor at the Mechatronics Division of the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden where she also taught research methodology and advanced mechatronics project courses, in addition to supervising many students on mechatronics and robotics thesis projects. Didem collaborated with universities and companies all around Europe through three EU-funded projects while conducting research on data and visual analytics for cyber-physical systems. She has been received best conference paper award from different scientific conferences during her PhD. Her master’s thesis was on sustainable environment and energy systems focusing on low power microprocessor design. Didem received a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering as the top student of her class with an exceptional track record, awarded with the best graduation project. She also actively volunteered in different human rights organizations to increase the awareness of LGBT rights, gender equality, refugee rights, and animal rights. She has been interviewed by several blogs, magazines, newspapers and attended television programs to discuss women in technology and engineering, to motivate girls to choose STEM disciplines and to increase the awareness on sustainability and equality related issues. Currently, she sits on the advisory board of several organisations and support their strategically development on topics related to responsible artificial intelligence/data science, sustainable technology and educational activities.
In addition to reviewing for research councils and journals, Didem serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Industrial Information Integration and on the editorial board of Discover Artificial Intelligence and Technologies. She is an IEEE Senior Member and has been recognized in the 2025 Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists list. She has served on Technical Program Committees for many conferences.
Didem’s current research interests focus on physical AI, bio-inspired multi-agent reinforcement learning, symbiotic robotics, and trustworthy autonomous systems. Her work explores cooperation, collaboration, and trust in multi-robot systems, drawing inspiration from natural ecosystems and emphasizing human-robot coexistence over pure optimization.
Didem Gürdür Broo 