He received his PhD from the University of Bonn in 1995 and spent several years on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University before coming to Stanford. Thrun is a visionary in the field of robotics. He led the team that won the DARPA Grand Challenge, a historic robot race in the Mojave Desert. Thrun also pioneered the use of statistics in robotics and has developed robots for nursing homes, museums, and mining operations. He has co-authored nearly 300 articles and seven books. Thrun has received numerous international awards and is a frequent keynote speaker at international events.