Bio

I am a visiting faculty member of the University of Memphis in Computer Science for the 2008-2009 academic year. I completed my Ph. D. at the University of Southern California under Maja Mataric.

Academic portfolio

• C.V.
• Research statement
• Teaching statement

Research

I am interested in discovering ways to get robots to perform occupational tasks (i.e., those tasks that humans perform during manual labor) autonomously and robustly. I believe that one of the biggest roadblocks to achieving this objective is the primitive state-of-the-art in dynamic robotic simulation. Robotic simulation is naturally useful for performing trials of tasks virtually, both for facilitating learning and ensuring safety. However, simulation also acts as a gauge for judging our ability to control a robot to perform a task: if we cannot model the dynamics of the task, we often cannot get a robot to perform that task.

In addition to dynamic simulation, I am interested in many aspects of Robotics. I have published research in programming robots and robot motion planning, both areas which I have explored toward my long-term research goals. Additionally, I have published work in machine learning, human animation, and molecular computing.

Contact info

Email:
Phone: 901.678.3142
209 Dunn Hall, Memphis, TN 38152