Joshua Marshall, PhD, PEng, SMIEEE, was born in ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ (Iqaluit, Nunavut) and was raised in St. Lucia (Caribbean), Edmonton (Alberta), Winnipeg (Manitoba), and North Bay (Ontario). Dr. Marshall is a robotics engineer, educator, and consultant with expertise in data-driven control systems engineering, mobile robotics, autonomous vehicle navigation and mapping. He has a special interest in and experience with autonomous robot applications in mining, space, marine, and defence, as well as in other harsh-environment applications.
Prof. Marshall earned his doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering, specializing in systems control, from the University of Toronto in 2005 under the supervision of Profs. Bruce Francis and Mireille Broucke. He joined Queen’s University in 2010 where he started the multidisciplinary Offroad Robotics research group and, most recently, led the collaborative robotics and artificial intelligence-focused Ingenuity Labs Research Institute as its founding Director (2018-24). At Queen’s, Dr. Marshall is a full Professor at Smith Engineering in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and is also cross-appointed to the Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering and to The Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining where he supervises graduate research. He has served as a departmental Graduate Admissions Coordinator (2019-23) and as Associate Head of Department (2017-19, 2025).
Prof. Marshall was a founding member of the NSERC Canadian Robotics Network (2011-24). In 2016-17, he was the KKS International Visiting Professor of Computer Science at the Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS) in the School of Science and Technology at Örebro University, Sweden. Prior to joining Queen’s, Dr. Marshall was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University. Before that, he served as an R&D/Control Systems Engineer on both space and terrestrial robotics projects at the firm MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates (MDA), Inc., where he worked on advanced field and mobile robotics projects for industry clients in Canada, the US, Australia, and Scandinavia.
Prof. Marshall is an elected Senior Member of the IEEE and serves as Chair of the Field Robotics Cluster within the Technical Advisories Board of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society (RAS). He served as a Technical Editor for the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2019-22) and currently serves as an Associate Editor for dataset papers at the International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR). He was an elected Associate Editor from 2017-20 to the Conference Editorial Board (CEB) of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) and as an Editor for the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Robots and Systems (IROS) from 2017-21 as well as Exhibits Chair for IROS 2017 in Vancouver, Canada. He served on three occasions as co-organizer of the Control and Robotics Symposium of the IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE) and as a member of the IEEE Medal for Environmental & Safety Technologies Committee (2018-20).
Prof. Marshall’s R&D work is featured in the From Earth to Us exhibit at the Canada Science and Technology Museum and has been commercialized through companies such as Epiroc (formerly Atlas Copco), Peck Tech Consulting (acquired by Caterpillar) and spin-off RockMass Technologies (now GroundedAI). He is the winner of the OPEA Engineering Medal — Research and Development from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) for "exceptional achievements in research, technological development, and the successful commercialization of engineering innovations". Dr. Marshall is a licensed Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and has served as an invited Program Visitor and Vice-Chair on multiple engineering program accreditation site visits across Canada for the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) of Engineers Canada.
Josh and his wife Jill live in the beautiful City of Kingston where they are the proud parents of Owen, Maeve, and Finn.
For a full list of Dr. Marshall's publications, visit the Offroad Robotics Publications webpage and QSpace for free pre-prints.