David Lentink is Full Professor in Biomimetics at the University of Groningen and studies how birds fly to develop better flying robots. He has a BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering (Aerodynamics, Delft University of Technology) and a PhD in Experimental Zoology cum laude (Wageningen University). During his PhD he visited the Bioengineering department at the California Institute of Technology for 9 months to study insect flight. His postdoctoral training at Harvard was focused on studying bird flight. Before moving to Groningen, he directed his bird wind tunnel research lab at Stanford. Publications range from technical journals to cover publications in Nature and Science. He is an alumnus of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, recipient of the Dutch Academic Year Prize and NSF CAREER award, he was recognized in 2013 as one of 40 scientists under 40 by the World Economic Forum, by the National Academy of Engineering as Gilbreth Lecturer, and he is the inaugural winner of the Steven Vogel Young Investigator Award.

If you like to learn more about me and my passion for science, engineering and robotics, I recommend watching the Dutch Documentary on this page in case you are located in The Netherlands. Outside The Netherlands, the subtitled international version can be viewed on YouTube: Flying like a bird. There is also this Stanford News story that explains how I ended up designing robots inspired by animal flight.