Team Members

Team Members
Credentials and Skills

PhD in Humanoid Robots, VUT, Melbourne , Australia , 1995
Thesis: "Motion learning by robot apprentices"
Relevant background and expertise: earliest work on anthropomorphic robot learning by imitation (1992- 1995); 17 years of R&D experience in learning and adaptive hardware; led several multi-million dollar projects for DoD and NASA.
Selected Article: A. Stoica, "Robot Fostering Techniques for Sensory-Motor Development of Humanoid Robots" In Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems. (Special Issue on Humanoid Robots). A. Knoll, G. Bekey, T. C. Henderson (eds.). 37(2-3) 2001. Elsevier Press.

Dr. Didier Keymeulen, JPL/3453

PhD in Mobile Robotics, Vrije Univ of Bruxells , Belgium 1995
Thesis: "A Dynamics Approach to Mobile Robot Motion: the Stream Field Method",
Relevant background and expertise: navigation, evolutionary robotics/.robot learning, fault-tolerant robotics
Selected Article: D. Keymeulen, et al . On-line evolution for a self-adapting robotic navigation system using evolvable hardware. Artificial Life (Special Issue on Evolutionary Robotics) 4(4):359-393, 1999, MIT Press.

Dr. Dan Mandutianu, JPL

PhD in Artificial Intelligence, Technical University of Bucharest, 1986
Thesis: “Intelligent robot planning.”
Relevant background and expertise: Knowledge representation, reasoning, SW architecture, rule-based systems, AI in general
Selected Article: D. Mandutianu and S. Voinea , (1984) Robots: Skill and Sensitive Behaviour, In I. Plander (Ed) Artificial Intelligence and Information-Control Systems of Robots, 1984, North-Holland,Amsterdam, pp 229-232

Dr. Chris Assad, JPL/3453

PhD in Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, 1997
Thesis: "Electric field maps and boundary element simulations of electrolocation in weakly electric fish." Caltech, 1997
Relevant background and expertise: Organized the first NASA/JPL Workshop on Biomorphic Robotics, 2000
Selected Article: C. Assad, M. Hartmann, M.G. Paulin (2002) Control of a simulated arm using a novel combination of cerebellar learning mechanisms. Neurocomputing 44-46 C:273-281

Professor Chris Tseng, NASA Faculty Fellow

PhD in Robotic and System Control, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988
Thesis: "Integral Manifold in Nonlinear systems and Robotics." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988
Relevant background and expertise: 20 years of R&D experience in robotics, control, and artificial intelligence.
Selected Article: H. Chris Tseng (1992) Fuzzy robot controller with time-scale decomposition. Second Int Conf. on Automation, Robotics and Computer Vision, Singapore

SURF STUDENTS

Jiajing Xu, California Institute of Technology
Jiajing is a Junior student majoring in Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology(Caltech). His Interests are integrated circuit design and robotics research. Relevant experience: SURF 04.
email: jiajing@caltech.edu

James M. Jeanne, Princeton University
James Jeanne is a senior at Princeton University majoring in Electrical Engineering. He is concentrating his studies in control systems and robotics, and is particularly interested in robust decentralized control of distributed systems. At JPL, James developed walking and other motion algorithms for use on the Fujitsu HOAP-2 humanoid robot.
email: jjeanne@princeton.edu

Ramiah Israel, Florida A & M University
Senior Computer Engineering
Florida A&M University
Research interests are Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Haptics
Ramiah worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA) under the Aeronautical division.
email: yeeah20002000@yahoo.com

Tammeca Samantha Rochester, Georgia Institute of Technology
Senior at Georgia Institute of Technology. Research Interests include Robotics and Aritifcial Intelligence. Tammeca worked two summers at NASA Ames Research Center in the Bio-Informatics Lab as well as under Lockhead Martin subcontractors working on fabrication of parts.
email: gtg775m@mail.gatech.edu

Tim Hidalgo, Riverside Community College
Tim Hidalgo is a Sophmore at Riverside Community College. He is majoring in Electrical Engineering. His research interest is Evolutionary Compuatation. Relavant experience: SURF 04.
email:tim.hidalgo@gmail.com