Oscar Mendez PhD
Download CV

Leading physical AI from strategy to deployment.

Oscar builds and leads teams that put AI onto machines working in the real world. At Locus Robotics he founded the computer vision function and now leads all AI and data science. At the University of Surrey he has led research on autonomous vehicles, agricultural, assistive and maritime robots.

Portrait of Dr Oscar Mendez
Director of AI & Data ScienceLocus Robotics
2025 to present
  • Grew the AI and Data Science team roughly threefold, and leads it.
  • Defined and delivers Locus Robotics' AI strategy for customers and investors, turning complex capabilities into clear, credible stories for executive and board audiences.
  • Designed and delivered System Directed Labor, which runs people, robots and AI as a single system to improve throughput across a whole fleet.
  • Leads high-impact work on foundation models, LLM integration and fleet-level intelligence across more than 350 customer sites.
  • Inventor on a patent application for warehouse labour orchestration.
  • Designed and rolled out MLOps capabilities across hundreds of sites.
Machine Vision LeadLocus Robotics
2023 to 2025
  • Designed the computer vision function and hired a team to own perception across the fleet.
  • Built foundation-model prototypes for depth estimation, semantic segmentation and visual odometry.
  • Ran on-robot trials of localisation and segmentation on edge hardware, then worked across teams to take validated models into production.
  • Contributed to open-source robotics libraries, including pose-graph optimisation tools.
Visiting Associate Professor in Robotics and AIUniversity of Surrey (CVSSP)
2021 to present
  • Leads research in robotics, AI and computer vision and supervises researchers.
  • Projects include agritech, a robot guide dog, assistive robots for healthcare and bird's-eye-view mapping.
  • Inventor on four granted US patents in sensor calibration, segmentation and bird's-eye-view semantic mapping.
Research FellowUniversity of Surrey (CVSSP)
2017 to 2021
  • Led independent research from core algorithms to deployable systems, and managed industrial and publicly funded projects.
  • Delivered localisation technology ready for ISO standards in multi-storey car parks, and bespoke autonomous-vehicle software on NVIDIA DRIVE PX2.
Education and service
  • PhD in Robotics, Computer Vision and AI, CVSSP, University of Surrey (2013 to 2017). Awarded the Sullivan Prize for the best UK computer vision thesis.
  • BEng (Hons) Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Surrey, First Class (2009 to 2013).
  • Sponsorship Chair on the executive committee of the British Machine Vision Association.
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Member of the IEEE and Associate of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).