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This fellowship is intended to provide CSEN PhD candidates with financial support to assist in the process of completing their doctoral dissertation.

We dove deeper into understanding what it takes to launch a company. More details on the program below.

This was an introductory set of sessions helping us understand how to test out start-up ideas with customer discovery.

We are confirmed for June 25th in LA. This workshop is meant to stimulate discussion on contact modeling, simulation, and data collection for machine learning methods. Check out the website and read my blog post on the topic of workshop organization.

"Ideas in Motion" is a poster session without the hassle of a physical poster. We encouraged students to present their unfinished projects to gain insights from the community. This event aims to boost collaboration among the students in the Computer Science, Mechanical, Electrical, Aerospace, and Atlas departments. Read more about it in my blog post.

A couple of us from the HIRO lab attended Boulder New Tech and Boulder Robotics and Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group (RMAIIG) with our very own robot demos. We welcomed a large group of people, including kids and professionals, to interact with the Franka arm. We explained that the purpose of our work is to enable physical contact between the robot and the environment. To that end, we implement control strategies (e.g. impedance) and novel skin sensors (e.g. mutual capacitance arrays) that enable the robot's awareness of the world. These events challenge us to think about how to explain our work to a general non-technical audience and think about how to show our work rather than just run through a couple of slides.

The goal of this program is to provide feedback and guidance to prospective CSEN PhD F25 students on their application materials including personal statements, CVs, and general application documents. I was connected with two applicants, read through their materials, and gave detailed written notes. After that, we met for about an hour to discuss any questions that they may have in more detail.

This three-day retreat brought together an incredible mix of individuals (including undergraduates, masters and PhD students, postdocs, professors, and industry professionals) with one common interest - a passion for robotics.

The conference is held from March 11-15, 2024 in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Student Volunteers (SV) are the heart of what makes a conference run smoothly, providing support for various activities at the conference (e.g., registration desk, technical assistance during presentations, demo setup/take down, support for virtual activities, etc.). One of my special tasks was to organize a dinner for the Steering Committee. I reached out to hotels, restaurants, museums, catering companies, and a multitude of other local establishments to make this event memorable.

Partnering with the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Conference 2022, my colleagues and I organized a workshop to discuss the opportunities and challenges of close-proximity human-robot collaboration (HRC). We argue that close-proximity HRC is i) an under-explored area of research, ii) key to the emergence of complex, rich, and flexible human-robot collaboration, and iii) an enabling technology for robots to respond to the pressing societal needs of modern society. We had an amazing list of speakers and contributions. If you are interested in learning more, check out the following links:

As a researcher in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, I like to spark curiosity and enthusiasm for science and technology in the community. To this end, I launched the Robotics Summer Camp for Middle School Students, funded by the Office for Outreach and Engagement (OOE). The camp took place in the Lafayette Public Library from June 6 to June 11 of 2022. Middle schoolers from the community attended the camp free of charge and learned about programming and robotics. They solved challenges such as having the robot avoid obstacles while navigating a maze, or having the robot exhibit a fear of heights when being picked up. Take a look at the following pages for more info: