Speakers

Joe Dyer leads the Government and Industrial Robots Division. He comes to iRobot from a career in the U.S. Navy. Dyer last served as the commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, where he was responsible for research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and logistics for naval aircraft, air launched weapons and sensors. His naval career also included positions as naval aviation’s chief engineer, commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division and F/A-18 program manager. Earlier in his career, he served as the Navy’s chief test pilot. Dyer holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree in finance from the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. He is an elected fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and the National Academy of Public Administration. Dyer chairs NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.

Scott is the CEO of Seegrid Corporation, which he co-founded in 2003 with Hans Moravec.  More information on Seegrid is available here: http://www.seegrid.com. Prior to Seegrid, Scott co-founded CareFlow|Net, an enterprise medical software company. CareFlow|Net was purchased by a division of Philips Electronics NV in 2003. Scott has an MD from West Virginia University and a BA from The University of Michigan, Honors College.

German is Chief Scientist for Deep Submergence at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the group responsible for developing exploration robots investigating deep-sea hydrothermal vents and discovering animals and plants never before seen by human eyes. He is working with NASA to use the lessons learned during deep ocean exploration to help guide future space / astrobiological exploration.

Dan Kara is President of Robotics Trends, a division of EH Publishing, an integrated media firm focusing on the personal, service and mobile robotics industry.  Prior to forming Robotics Trends, Dan was Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Intermedia Group, a leading integrated conference and media company focused on emerging information technology markets.  He has also served as VP of Advanced Information Technology Research at Sentry Group, VP and Director of Research at Ullo International, and as Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Software Productivity Group, an integrated publishing, conference and analyst services firm focused on the enterprise software marketplace. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Boston University.

Paolo Pirjanian, President and CEO of Evolution Robotics, is an entrepreneur who enjoys formulating strategies and forging partnerships to translate technologies into competitive market positions. He serves on several boards including IEEE R&A, RoboBusiness and Autonomous Robot Journal.  He received his Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University in Denmark.

Daniela Rus is a professor in the Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences department at MIT. She also co-directs MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) Center for Robotics and is associate director of CSAIL.  Previously, she was an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor in the Computer Science Department at Dartmouth. Her research interests include robotics, mobile computing, sensor networks, and information organization. Daniela was the recipient of an National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow. She is a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow.  Daniela holds a PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Tandy Trower has a 27 year history with new products and technology initiatives at Microsoft bringing to market new products as diverse as Microsoft Flight Simulator to Microsoft Windows. In addition, as a strong proponent of the importance of design in human-computer interaction he has contributed to the company’s investment in improving its user interfaces, founding the company’s first usability labs and product design roles. He continues to investigate and drive strategic new technology directions for the company and incubating new projects.

Lars Asplund is Professor of Computer Science at Mälardalen University, Sweden, where his primary research area is System-on-a-Chip. He is founder and owner of Asplund Data AB, and is also one of the majority owners and CTO of Senseboard Technologies AB. He is the author of nine fundamental books in electronics, and is currently writing a textbook on robotics.  Prof. Asplund initiated the Information Technology program at Uppsala University (1995) and the Robotics program at Mälardalen University (2003). He has been responsible for six different robotics platforms (including the hardware, electronics and software).

Brian Colandreo is a registered patent attorney practicing in the Intellectual Property Law Practice Group of Holland & Knight. Mr. Colandreo has extensive patent prosecution experience and represents clients that range from individual inventors to Fortune 100 companies, examples of which include IBM, Rational Software, RealNetworks, and Enterasys. Mr. Colandreo has prosecuted patent applications in the areas of: robotics; artificial intelligence; business methods; application software; network management; data encryption; media streaming technologies; digital rights management; securities trading platforms; graphical user interfaces; superconducting machines; medical devices; and microprocessor design. Mr. Colandreo is a member of the MassTLC Robotics Cluster, an adjunct professor of intellectual property law at Franklin Pierce Law Center, and was co-chair of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Entrepreneurs Network. Prior to entering law school, Mr. Colandreo worked as a systems / software engineer for Johnson Controls.

Mike Dunbar was named Business Development Manager for Velodyne Lidar, Inc. in May 2007. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience in the sensor field, mostly with physical sensors (pressure, acceleration) using MEMS technology, Mike has extensive experience bringing new technologies to market, establishing sales channels, and leading the growth of start-up organizations. Prior to joining Velodyne Lidar, he contributed to the success of many companies including IC Sensors, Texas Instruments, Crossbow Technology, and Silicon Microstructures, Inc. Mike has been the author of numerous articles in trade publications and technical conferences in the sensing field. He is a graguate of University of California, Berkeley.

Pierre Dupont is a professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Departments at Boston University. He is Director of the BioRobotics Research Group and is also on the Scientific Staff of Cardiovascular Surgery at Children’s Hospital, Boston. He received the BS, MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He conducts research in image-guided minimally invasive surgery. This includes the design of medical robots, the modeling of tool-tissue interaction, the development of interventional imaging techniques and the automation of instrument motion. For more information, please visit http://biorobotics.bu.edu.

Tom Dusenberry, President of Robonica, a privately-held company with a research and development facility in Centurion , South Africa , and marketing and commercial headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, is the former CEO of Hasbro Interactive and Games.com.  He was also a senior level executive at Parker Brothers Games and Milton Bradley.  Over the past thirty years, he has been most closely associated with the publishing of hits such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Tonka, Frogger, Star Wars, NASCAR and Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Ralph “Woody” English has been professionally involved with robotics since 1994. In that time he has worked with simulation systems, autonomous survey systems, tele-operated vehicles, and standards development. Mr. English has performed a full range of robotics related duties from programming to program management. He has worked robotics engineering programs with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Tyndall AFB, AMRDEC’s Software Engineering Directorate, Future Combat Systems, with an Urban Challenge team and is now the President of DeVivo AST, Inc. For the past eight years Mr. English has been a significant contributor to the evolution of the JAUS standard. He is presently the Chair of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Technical Committee for Unmanned Systems.

Matt Fisher, CEO of Kumotek, is a recognized authority in emerging robotics technologies and interactive entertainment.  In 2004 Matt founded Kumotek, a Richardson, Texas based robotics design and manufacturing company that works closely with leading robotics equipment manufacturers in Asia to develop high-end robot kits for both hobby, and educational markets, as well as develops state of the art ground robots for police, fire and rescue teams.  Fluent in Japanese, Matt also provides international trade consulting. He is also the founder of an educational program called Robot P.E.T.S. (Robots Promoting Education Through Science), which is designed to help K-12 students focus more on science. HE holds a B.S from the University of Richmond.

Eric Gregori is an Embedded Firmware Product Specialist at Freescale Semiconductor.  He is a robot enthusiast with 15 years of embedded firmware design experience and special interest in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and programming for Windows Embedded CE and Linux operating systems.  Eric runs EMGRobotics.com, authored the Robot Vision Toolkit, and developed the RobotSee Interpreter open source projects.  He is working towards his Masters in Computer Science, and holds 10 patents in industrial automation and control.

Blake Herrin is director of marketing and business development for Radiance Technologies, a defense contractor providing engineering and program support services to the U.S. DoD and all branches of the military. Radiance specializes in system engineering projects related to sensors and unmanned systems. In 2008, Radiance Technologies was chosen by the Small Business Administration as Region IV Prime Contractor of the Year. Prior to Radiance, Herrin’s consulting clients included Lockheed Martin, John Deere and Neural Robotics. He managed the marketing team for 3-D visualization pioneer Virtus, and was one of the first trainers at U.S. Space Camp. Herrin graduated with Honors from Auburn University and received his MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Todd Jochem is currently a Group Director at Foster-Miller, a subsidiary of the QinetiQ. Prior to his current position, Todd was the Founder and President of Applied Perception, where he focused the company on Department of Defense-funded efforts to improve unmanned ground vehicle capabilities. Earlier he co-founded AssistWare Technology, Inc. (acquired by Cognex in 2006) and worked as a Systems Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) Robotics Institute. Todd is a recipient of CMU’s Allan Newell Award for Research Excellence and was named a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Pittsburgh Region. His work at CMU was also recognized more broadly in 2007 when the Navlab 5, a self-driving car that Todd co-invented while at CMU, was inducted into the Robotics Hall of Fame. Todd holds a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Joseph L. Jones is cofounder and CTO of Harvest Automation, Inc.  His primary interest is the practical application of robotic technology to real-world problems.  Prior to forming Harvest, Mr. Jones was a senior roboticist with iRobot Corporation.  There he proposed and helped develop the Roomba floor cleaning robot.  Before joining iRobot Mr. Jones served on the research staff at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.  He holds SB and SM degrees from MIT.    Harvest Automation, Inc. develops practical robotic systems for the agricultural industry.

As CEO of the Incheon IT Industry Promotion Agency (IITPA), Eugene Jun leads that organization’s efforts to build the Incheon area into world class IT cluster and E-Business center. He is also the Chairman of the Steering Committee for Robotland, a robotics theme park slated to open in Incheon in 2012.  Prior, Eugene held many positions in government, business and academic including Chairman, Korea Science Foundation and Director General for R & D for Korea’s Ministry of Science & Technology(MOST).  He holds a PhD for Institute of Materials at the University of Hannover.

As CEO, Chetan leads Agile Planet efforts towards solving complex safety and controls problems for the medical, industrial and defense industries using its state-of-the art robotics and simulation software. Chetan also is the Associate Director of the Robotics Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin, where he led the development of a completely general software for manipulator control called OSCAR.  Other software that he has developed is the widely used RoboWorks that is available commercially and RRG Kinematix which has over 1000 users worldwide.  He has successfully proposed and led multi-million dollar projects for DARPA, DOE, NASA, and other agencies. His 2006 paper on “Integrated Teleoperation and Automation for Nuclear Facility Cleanup”  won the outstanding paper award from the Industrial Robot journal. In 2005, Dr. Kapoor was Listed amongst the “Top 33 Academicians to Watch For” by the Reed Science Group in their Academic Sourcebook.

As the US Program Manager for Unmanned Systems and Robotics at National Instruments, Charlie Knapp is responsible for providing expert design, control, and automation solution guidance to current and potential customers throughout the United States.  Charlie has nearly 20 years of engineering experience. Prior to joining NI, he spent eight years working as a research and development engineer for AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) in New Jersey. In this position Charlie developed an in-depth understanding of the challenges engineers and scientists face on a daily basis.  Charlie will be partnering with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on this presentation.  Other members include:  Charles Reinholtz, Jayson Clifford, Michael Bakula, Christoper Hockley, Aaron Brookshire, and Wiljariette Hernandez

Dave Kroetsch is President of Aeryon Labs Inc., a Waterloo, Canada based firm that designs small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems for military and civilian applications.  He brings over 12 years experience working with unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles to the position.  Prior to his work at Aeryon Labs, Dave worked in the digital video industry, where his experience in the hardware and software aspects of networked digital video and video compression technologies have been invaluable during the design and development of small, lightweight systems that enable the collection of high resolution digital imagery and real-time digital video from aerial vantage points.  He holds a MASc in Mechanical Engineering form the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Corinna Lathan is a Product Developer, Roboticist, and Education Entrepreneur. Her background includes extensive research, teaching, and consulting in the areas of biomedical and human performance engineering, human factors, and education. Prior to founding AnthroTronix, she was an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at The Catholic University of America (CUA) and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.  Cori’s leadership of AnthroTronix earned the company the honor of being named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in 2004 and a 2005 San Jose Tech Museum Awards Laureate.  Cori was also named a Young Global Leader in 2006 by the World Economic Forum. Other awards include Maryland’s “Top Innovator of the Year,” Technology Magazine’s “Top 100 World Innovators Under the age of 35,” and the Women in Technology Leadership Award for Entrepreneurship.  She holds a PhD in Neuroscience an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT.

Joe Martino is a Sales and Applications Engineer for maxon precision motors, a leading supplier of high precision drives and systems. For the past 8 years, Mr. Martino has been responsible for the Northeastern Sales territory of the United States at maxon.  He has a background in Physics, Astronomy, and Education as well as a very wide variety of experience in applications among the Medical, Industrial, Military, and Semiconductor sectors.

John Merchant is President of RPU Technology, a provider of innovative vision systems based upon human vision for collision avoidance, automatic target recognition and target detection in clutter.  Prior to founding RPU Technology in 1996, John worked at Honeywell (now BAE Systems) where he received their Engineer of the Year Award in 1990.  He has recently been included in the IEEE Public Visibility Initiative to raise awareness about telepresence in relation to highway congestion, energy, the environment, and space exploration.

Marek Michalowski is co-founder of BeatBots LLC and a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. His thesis research focuses on the role of rhythmic synchrony in human-robot social interaction. The platform for his research is Keepon, a robot designed by Dr. Hideki Kozima, which is designed for institutional use in research, education, therapy, and entertainment. Marek ‘s development of Keepon’s dancing abilities has resulted in a number of popular music videos, public appearances, and awards, such as Wired NextFest, the Webby Film & Video Awards, and the Robots At Play Festival. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon University, Marek earned BA and MS degrees in Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University. He has been a visiting researcher at a number of robot design and cognitive science laboratories, including the Department of Humanoid Robotics and Computational Neuroscience at ATR in Japan, the PES Design Lab at KAIST in Korea, the CNRS Centre Emotion at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in France, and the School of Project Design at Miyagi University in Japan.

Erik Nieves is currently Technology Director for Motoman Inc., responsible for strategic planning of the corporate technology roadmap with special focus on robots for precision applications.  During his nearly 20-year tenure at Motoman, Erik has held a variety of leadership positions in the U.S. and Mexico. He is an active member of the Robotics Industries Association (RIA), where he serves on standards development committees and on the “Ask the Experts” forum.  He is also on the advisory committee for Texas A&M University’s Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Technology (MMET) program.  Erik has published many articles on advances in robot technology, including multiple manipulator control, application-specific (purpose-driven) robots, vision-guidance, and robotic metrology. Erik holds a B.S. degree in Mathematical Physics from Southwestern Adventist University (1990). 

Charles Remsberg is the CEO for Hocoma Inc, the leader in robotic rehabilitation therapy for neurological movement disorders.  Prior to this role, he was responsible for worldwide sales and marketing for Hocoma, as well as an early investor in the company.  Charles was also instrumental in the development of Biodex Medical Systems, a market leader for physical medicine and rehabilitation devices holding several senior management roles.  He currently serves as a board member for the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce here in Boston.

Patrick Rowe is the Vice President of Research and Development at RE2.  Patrick has over 16 years of practical experience in all applications of ground robotics. His specific areas of expertise include autonomous navigation, path planning, robotic manipulation and control, sensor processing, computer vision, and system integration of complete robotic vehicles. With his work at RE2 and in previous positions, Patrick has successfully proposed and led numerous multimillion dollar robotics research and development efforts for both government and industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon.

Thomas Ryden is one of the cofounders of North End Technologies, Inc. and serves as its COO.  Prior to starting North End, Tom was Director of Sales & Marketing at iRobot Corporation.  Previously he was President and Co-founder of Exeter Analytical, Inc, a manufacturer of analytical instrumentation. Before starting Exeter, Tom held positions at Teledyne and Lotus Development Corporation.  He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Bentley College.

As president and founder of Automated Medical Instruments, Inc., a company focused on developing remote controlled instruments for minimally invasive surgical applications, Martin Sklar can draw on over twenty five years of successful accomplishments.  Martin has experience in business development, project management, design engineering, analysis, manufacturing engineering and product introduction in the medical product industry. These skills were acquired while working with Fortune 500 companies including Corning Glass Works, Hewlett Packard, Johnson & Johnson, and Millipore Corporation, along with several early stage and start-up companies.  In 2001, Martin co-founded, and later became the first President of the not-for-profit Medical Development Group, a New England based medical technology professional industry group. He was also a co-founder of AlvaMed, LLC., and Medical Development Partners, LLC. (“MDP”), two for profit medical device consulting companies.  Martin holds a Master of Engineering Degree from Dartmouth College, a Bachelor of Science Degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Martin has 10 issued patents along with 2 patents pending.

Neil Tardella guides production of next-generation robotic arms at Energid.  He also provides technical expertise in software design, simulation for rapid robot development, and human machine interaction. His technical background includes developing real-time embedded software for critical systems such as multimode radar, Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) systems, Moving Target Indicator (MTI) systems, and radar siting systems. He also has an extensive background in simulations, having lead the development effort for a force-on-force constructive battlefield simulation. At Energid, he implemented Energid’s real-time robotic collision detection and avoidance algorithms.

Bob Touchton is Vice President of Business Innovation and Robotics at Prioria Robotics, an engineering company specializing in the design, development, and integration of autonomous systems and robotic applications, and the embedded systems and advanced machine perception components that make them work.  A business leader and emerging technology expert with over 30 years of experience,  he is a licensed Professional Engineer with advanced degrees in both Engineering and Computer Science.  Bob received his PhD in 2006 from the University of Florida; his doctoral research was real-time adaptive planning, situation assessment and decision-making on board autonomous ground vehicles.  Bob participated as a finalist in all three DARPA Challenges, is an active participant in SAE/AS4 (JAUS), and was previously Managing Director of Autonomous Systems for Honeywell’s Business Innovation Center.

Bill Townsend is President and CEO of Barrett Technology, described as the maker of the world’s “most advanced robotic arm” in the special Millennium Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.  Barrett’s WAM arm and BarrettHand products operate in 15 countries around the globe today; and the WAM is the only arm approved by the FDA for force-controlled (haptic) surgery, having performed 100s of successful knee-implant surgeries across the US. Bill has been awarded 8 US patents and won several professional awards including The Robotic Industries Association’s Joseph Engelberger Award in 2003 for pioneering the first haptic robot in the 1980s and best-paper-of-the-year award from UK-journal, Industrial Robot, in 2005.  He holds a PhD and MS from MIT and a BS from Northeastern.
Session: Advances in Dexterous Manipulation

Doug Traster, President and Chief Technology Officer of Precise Path Robotics, has over 20 years experience in the development of robotic industrial automation.  He founded Varix Corporation in 1981 as the first personal computer based test equipment company.  Subsequently he worked as a consultant for high speed data communication, automobile diagnostic equipment, industrial automation and other embedded controller applications.  After entering the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with a team of over 100 volunteers, Precise Path Robotics was founded to commercialize the software technology developed from this effort.  The company’s first product, a robotic greens mower, enters production later this year.  Doug is an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

As co-founder, President and CTO of AnthroTronix, Jack Vice is responsible management of the company’s DoD contracts, and oversight of all mechanical, electrical and software engineering resources. Jack has pioneered the development of advanced user interfaces for infantry warfighters which is a core AnthroTronix technology. In the past, he has lead DoD contracts under DARPA, ONR, Natick, and Army Research Lab. He has also been involved with the conceptual and technical design of deployable human-machine interfaces for the warfighter, as well as systems integration and simulation development for warfighter training. Prior to co-founding ATinc, Jack worked for five years as a computer programmer at the Space Systems Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park. He specialized in robotic control software, artificial intelligence for robot navigation and chassis design for highly mobile robots. A marine Corps veteran, Jack hold a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.

Daniel Weinreb is a member of Common Angels, an angel investing group in Boston.  In 1980, he co-founded Symbolics, Inc., a computer software and hardware company making Lisp Machines, for artificial intelligence and software development. Symbolics went public in 1984.  In 1988, he co-founded Object Design, Inc. (later eXcelon, Inc. and currently the Objectstore division of Progress Software). The company makes the leading object-oriented database management system, and many other software products. Dan was one of the original designers and architects of the products. Object Design went public in 1996.  Currently, he works at ITA Software, Inc., in a team building a new major airline reservation system, initially for Air Canada.  He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, 1979).

Dr Jim Wyatt has worked in the field of robotics for the past 12 years. His PhD thesis, the Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in the UK, examined consumer attitudes towards interactive products and robots based on the robot and magazine series Ultimate Real Robots that he developed for Eaglemoss Publications which sold over 23 million copies worldwide. During his time at the University of Reading Jim was also extensively involved in public engagement programs introducing kids and adults to robots in over 300 public lectures and events. He continues to lecture and conduct research at the university in his capacity of Visiting Research Fellow. Jim went on to found Kablamm Ltd, a technology development house, supplying the toy and education markets with robotics and artificial intelligence/life solutions. For the past 8 years he has worked extensively with developers and manufacturers in the US, Asia and Europe to produce interactive products that are affordable, desirable and manufacturable. Kablamm’s most recent product, the humanoid robot system MechRC, is a joint venture with a Taiwanese manufacturer and is now rolling out in schools and homes worldwide.

Dr. Holly Yanco is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at UMass Lowell, where she founded and heads the Robotics Lab. Her research interests include human-robot interaction, urban search and rescue, and assistive technology.  Dr. Yanco’s research is funded by the Army Research Laboratories, Microsoft, NIST and the National Science Foundation; she received a Career Award from NSF in 2006. She was the PI of the NSF funded Pyro Project, which was awarded the NEEDS Premiere Award for Courseware in 2005.  Dr. Yanco is a member of the Executive Council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).  She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Robotics Cluster, a group of corporations and academic labs working in the area of robotics development. She has a PhD and MS from MIT and a BA from Wellesley College, all in Computer Science.