ME


Background

I grew up in Lexington, MA and have attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst since 1997 (going for one degree after another). I recently defended my Ph.D. dissertation in Robotics (successfully). In the Fall, I will begin a 2-year Post-Doc at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genova, Italy working on the iCub.


Jazz Radio

From the beginning of 2005 to 2009, I DJ'd a radio show at the UMass Radio Station WMUA 91.1 FM, part of the weekday morning "Jazz Block." The show is called Soul Station and it airs Thursdays 9:00am-12:00pm. Search through our online playlists here. I've taken a hiatus to finish my dissertation this semester, but still do occasional fill-ins.

WMUA.ORG


Research

Since 2002, I have been working in the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics with my advisor Roderic Grupen. My research focus considers the long-term acquisition of dexterous behavior in humanoid robots. I believe that the development of such behavior will only occur through an understanding of principles of embodiment---how an organism can successfully engage its sensorimotor resources in its environment. My research draws upon the fields of robotics, machine learning, developmental psychology, computational neuroscience, computer vision, and signal processing.

Over the past few years, I have performed experiments on UMass' own humanoid robot Dexter, as well as the NASA Robonaut, located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

In September 2009, I will begin a post-doc at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genova, Italy with Giorgio Metta and the iCub.

Dexter
Dexter - The UMass Bi-Manual Humanoid
Robonaut
The NASA-JSC Robonaut
iCub
The iCub

NASA My research has been sponsored by NASA Space Grant Awards and a fellowship from the NASA Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP)


Education


Awards and Honors


Publications

Theses

Papers

Workshops

Technical Reports


Last Updated - August 21, 2009 LPR



simple hit counter
the barcode printer: free barcode generator