A Day in the Life of a Roboticist: Charlie Kemp

Charlie Kemp, cofounder and chief technology officer of Hello Robot, is the subject of a profile in IEEE Spectrum's A Day in the Life of a Roboticist series, published September 28, 2026. Kemp develops mobile manipulators intended to help people in their homes and workplaces, including assistive robots for older adults and people with disabilities.

Kemp said his interest in robotics began as an approach to grand challenges in artificial intelligence while he was an undergraduate at MIT. He joined Rod Brooks's lab and worked on the humanoid robot Domo with cofounder Aaron Edsinger. The two won a best paper award at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics in 2006 for a system that enabled Domo to help a person put objects on a shelf. Kemp said this work led to his interest in assistive robotics and helped him obtain a faculty position at Georgia Tech.

He said that at Hello Robot he has been surprised by how physical robotic assistance can help people connect emotionally, citing Henry Evans using Stretch to present a rose to Jane Evans. Kemp also named Robots for Humanity as a standout project. He said Henry Evans saw a demonstration of his academic lab's research on CNN in 2010, leading to a collaboration that continues. Henry Evans has severe quadriplegia, and he and Jane Evans have used each generation of Stretch, which Kemp said influenced subsequent designs, especially Stretch 4.

Kemp said some of his best days focus on the people using the robot rather than the robot itself, naming Keith, Henry and Jane Evans and hundreds of people who have worked with robots from Hello Robot and his academic lab. He said real-world interactions reveal opportunities for improvement, and that answers to questions about useful, easy-to-use robots are not found by programming alone. He noted that autonomy is sometimes not the answer because an individual may want more control.

On career advice, Kemp said there is a vast difference between a demo video and a robot being productive in the real world, and that the field has an enormous amount still to build, learn and discover. He also said people do not have to focus on robotics technology to work in robotics, citing Dr. Vy Nguyễn, Hello Robot's clinical research lead, who started in robotics while earning a doctorate in occupational therapy.