Rate My Professor Gordon Wyeth

Professor Gordon Wyeth is a distinguished academic leader, robotics researcher, and university educator currently serving as Dean of Engineering at the University of Newcastle since 2025. Previously, he held the position of Executive Dean of the Science and Engineering Faculty at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where he led a large, cross-disciplinary faculty encompassing over 12,500 students and 870 full-time equivalent staff across ten schools in science, engineering, information technology, and the built environment. Prior to that, he was the foundation Head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at QUT, overseeing 3,500 students and 80 staff. Wyeth began his academic career at the University of Queensland (UQ), where he created the Mechatronic Engineering program and founded the UQ Robotics Laboratory. His academic qualifications include a PhD in Robotics from UQ awarded in 1997, a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Computer Systems Engineering from UQ in 1989, and a Graduate Certificate in Education (Higher Education) from UQ.

Wyeth's research specializes in cognitive robotics, mechatronics, and visual place recognition, employing biological and cognitive models of visual navigation to develop advanced real-world robotic navigation systems, with practical applications in agriculture and mining. He has authored over 150 publications in leading journals and conferences and has been awarded Australian Research Council Discovery, Linkage, and Special Research Initiative grants. As Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision, his work has achieved commercial outcomes through government and industry funding. Notable successes include two world championships with the maze-solving robot CUQEE and three runner-up finishes in the RoboCup world championships with the RoboRoos robot soccer team. With 30 years of teaching experience, Wyeth has implemented comprehensive curriculum revisions for engineering and IT programs, earning acclaim from Engineers Australia for best practices in project-based learning. He established the RoboCup Junior outreach program in Queensland, now in its 25th year and having engaged over 50,000 students in hands-on robotics challenges. Wyeth is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, a Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and a Member of the Australian Robotics and Automation Association. Key publications include 'Persistent Navigation and Mapping using a Biologically Inspired SLAM System' (2010), 'SeqSLAM: Visual route-based navigation for sunny summer days and stormy winter nights' (2012), and 'OpenRatSLAM: an open source brain-based SLAM system' (2013).