When Ms Ebadi gains her PhD in information science today, she will be among 280 commerce graduands who will graduate in person at a 3pm ceremony at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin.
She has developed a computerised framework enabling large numbers of robots to work collaboratively on practical, rescue-related tasks, and without continuous human supervision, in challenging and rapidly changing environments, such as after the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch.
And she has drawn much of her inspiration from nature and, particularly, the behaviour of ants, including when foraging for food.
Ants kept track of "local information" and followed simple rules, but through all following the same rules, a form of intelligence emerged "from the operation of the group", she said.
"I'm very happy about the work that I've done in terms of its impact. I've always wanted to do something that could benefit other people."
Immediately after a large-scale disaster, people were often trapped and rescuers were trying to locate and save them.
But rescuers often faced large and complex damage sites many of which were "extremely dangerous" to enter.
A huge amount of work had to be done, but there was often little time to save the survivors.
Once the technology had been further developed, an army of small robots, some with wheels or small legs for climbing, or built like snakes to slither through crevices in ruined buildings, could be sent in almost immediately.
And through the software framework she had helped develop, they could collaboratively share the work, also reorganising tasks among themselves to take account of dynamic changes in the environment, such as the outbreak of fire.
Small, cheap and expendable robots could do much of the work quickly, without endangering further human lives.
In both the Christchurch quake, which killed more than 180 people, and a huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year, having a system involving robots that could "autonomously co-operate and co-ordinate their activities" would have been "extremely beneficial", she said.
Ms Ebadi, who was born in Iran, will, after graduating today, have something else in common with her husband, Dr Nasser Bagheri, who already has an Otago PhD in information science.
She yesterday praised her husband, family and her supervisors Dr Maryam Purvis and Prof Martin Purvis, of the information science department, and said she could not have completed her studies without their support.
