MADELINE GANNON

THE ROBOT WHISPERER
Multidisciplinary Designer and Inventor

Madeline Gannon didn’t set out to make robots friendlier - she set out to make them more human. At ATONATON, she transforms industrial machines into living, responsive creatures, giving them playful, sometimes mischievous behaviours that surprise and engage the people around them. Gannon carved her own path across art and engineering, trusting her curiosity when the route wasn’t obvious. Watch Mimus interact with a child and you witness something revolutionary: a multi-ton industrial arm moving with the gentle curiosity of a large animal encountering something new.

Where others saw cold machinery optimised for efficiency, Gannon saw potential for connection + wonder.

Turning multi-ton industrial machines into creatures with attention and charm— just another Tuesday for Gannon!

Nationality:
American

Career path:
Founder and Principal Researcher of ATONATON, creating experimental, human-centred robotic interfaces

PhD in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University

World Economic Forum Cultural Leader and listed among the World’s 50 Most Renowned Women in Robotics

Exhibited internationally, including the Copernicus Science Centre, the Design Museum and the Barbican Centre

Gannon forged a new direction across disciplinary boundaries when there was no obvious route—computational design, robotics, art, human-computer interaction. She holds a PhD in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon, but her real education happened in the space between fields, where engineering meets empathy and technology becomes cultural practice. 

As founder of ATONATON, she creates experimental interfaces that make industrial robots legible to human intuition. Not through screens or buttons, but through movement, attention, and something approaching body language. 

Her work asks: What if robots could read a room? What if they had presence, not just function?

Proving that the most sophisticated AI isn’t the fastest or smartets - it’s the one that undrstands how to be present with humans …