Meet Eran
Name: Eran Bamani
Research Topic: Computer Vision, Robot-human interactions
Field: Robotics, Faculty of Engineering
Life has not dealt Eran Bamani a winning hand. Born in Tel Mond to divorced parents of Iranian and Yemenite descent, Eran had little direction growing up. “Coming from a family of a low socio-economic status, education was not a priority,” he explains.
Until 9th grade, Eran struggled academically and was considered a problematic student. “The turning point came when my chemistry teacher invited me for a talk and explained that if I wanted to break out of this cycle of and succeed in life, I needed to start taking responsibility for my life and not surrender to the challenges I was born into,” explains Eran sitting comfortably in his lab at the Broadcom building at TAU’s Fleischman Faculty of Engineering.
Bamani was the first in his family to complete a bachelor’s degree, let alone a PhD. “To achieve this, I had to sacrifice a great deal,” he explains.
During his1st degree studies BSc in electrical engineering at Ariel University, Bamani became passionate about research. “I saw that it is something important that affects humanity as a whole and helps make life better,” he says. And so, he continued on to a master’s degree and eventually a PhD at TAU. In fact, Bamani found his future PhD adviser, Prof. Avishai Sintov, through “social media,” and has been at Sintov’s Robotics Lab ever since.
Even then, the road to success was still challenging. “Four months into my PhD, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that significantly affected my work. I endured extensive hospitalizations and treatments, which caused constant exhaustion and impaired my ability to concentrate.”
Nevertheless, Bamani managed to publish seven academic papers, additional papers for conferences and presented his research on computer vision and human-robot interactions at prestigious conferences around the world. “Obstacles did not break me and I overcame every hurdle that stood in my way,” he says with reserve. Today Eran Bamani is in the final stages of his PhD and is eyeing a post-doc at MIT. He is married with a young son.
Bamani’s goal is to lead a lab that combines research in robotics with medical applications and to no less than “change the world through it”. “I’m grateful for the fellowship support I’ve received in my lab. Without it completing a PhD and continuing in academia would have been impossible,” he says.
