Dr. Sivashankar Sivakanthan is the Chief of Staff for the Robotic Assisted Mobility and Manipulation Platform (RAMMP) project at the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL) at the University of Pittsburgh. On the RERC MOVE-IT project he served as the project kickoff lead and project leader for R3.
Dr. Sivashankar’s research spans robotic wheelchairs, assistive manipulation, accessible autonomous transportation, and accessible air travel for powered mobility device users. His scholarly contributions include robotic wheelchair taxonomy and readiness modeling, perception-based navigation systems, dynamic stability and suspension design, and mixed-methods research informing policy and inclusive design. His work emphasizes participatory, human-centered approaches and the translation of research into deployable, real-world solutions.
He currently serves as a team member on R1, R3 and R5.