Denny Oetomo

Professor Denny Oetomo is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne's Melbourne School of Engineering. He serves as the Robotics Group Leader and a key member of the Human Robotics Laboratory. Oetomo holds a PhD from the National University of Singapore and a Bachelor's degree with Honours from the Australian National University. His career includes a Research Fellowship at Monash University in collaboration with INRIA Sophia-Antipolis following his doctoral studies. At Melbourne, he has progressed from Associate Professor to full Professor, contributing significantly to robotics education and research. He coordinates and teaches courses such as MCEN90028 Robotics Systems and MCEN90061 Mechatronics Systems Design, focusing on practical applications in mechatronics and robotic systems.

Oetomo's research centers on robotics, with particular emphasis on physical human-robot interaction, human-robot collaboration, assistive robotics, and rehabilitation technologies. His projects include the development of intelligent load-carrying passive exoskeletons for gait assistance and rehabilitation, task-centric synthesis for wearable assistive robots, and bionic hand redesigns to enhance dexterity for amputees. Notable publications encompass 'A lower-back focused motion capture and electromyography dataset for human movement analysis' published in Scientific Data in 2025, 'Technology-assisted assessment of spasticity: a systematic review' in 2022, and contributions to singularity robust algorithms in serial manipulators. With over 3,500 citations across more than 270 publications documented on platforms like Google Scholar and ResearchGate, his work has advanced fields like rehabilitation robotics and human-machine interaction. In recognition of his supervision, he received the 2014 Norman Curry Award for leading the University of Melbourne Formula SAE team. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and actively supervises student teams that have won competitions such as the top prize at HRI24 for a robot assistant.

Professional Email: doetomo@unimelb.edu.au