Stefan Schaal is a computer scientist specializing in robotics and AI. He became a professor at the University of Southern California in 1997, advancing to full professor with tenure. He is a Founding Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany and has held roles at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratory in Japan. He was Director of Robotics at Google X before becoming Chief Scientific Officer at Intrinsic, an Alphabet Company. His research spans statistical learning, computational neuroscience, and biomimetic robotics, focusing on motor control and learning in both humans and robots.