I am currently a Senior Engineer in Research at ROAHM Lab and the Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles at the University of Michigan, where my research focuses on provably-safe real-time planning and control of autonomous robots.
I received my PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in August 2021, where I worked in ROAHM Lab under Prof. Ram Vasudevan. I’m originally from Goleta, California and received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in May 2015.
I believe that safety is critical to deploying robots into the real world where they can help people. In my research, safety means guaranteeing that certain constraints are satisfied despite model uncertainty.
Most recently, my research has focused on utilizing reachability analysis and robust control to find and execute safe trajectories for autonomous robots despite uncertainty in model dynamics. For a robotic arm carrying a dumbbell of uncertain mass, this means planning trajectories in real time that are guaranteed to avoid collisions and input saturation despite model uncertainty. I have applied this style of framework to quadrotors and robotic prosthetic legs, and am helping to extend this work to bipedal walking robots.
Earlier, my research focused on using reachability analysis to characterize human stability during sit-to-stand and walking, and demonstrating these results through biomechanical experiments. These model-based techniques to analyze human motion can identify those at risk of falling, and possibly inform rehabilitation in the future.
I am interested in combining my expertise in safe robot motion planning and human biomechanical analysis to create robots which can safely operate in tandem with people to help them achieve their goals.