Nick Kohut Email & Phone Number

California, United States

Mountain View, California, US

Testing and evaluation of driving behavior, perception, and fault protection; including collision avoidance, conflict avoidance, compliance testing, and weather.My group writes software, specifies and architects simulation tests and testing, and creates processes and tools to scalably verify autonomous vehicle software.

Mountain View, California, US

Foster City, California, US

I managed the Planning and Control Metrics and Architecture team at Zoox. This includes Planning and Control software architecture, along with the measurement of Zoox's motion planning performance (driving behavior, software health, system performance, etc.). I also worked closely with Zoox's QA team to validate our motion planning software.

Foster City, California, US

I spent my first 9 months at Zoox as the manager and founding member of the HIL SW Validation team. This team builds bespoke software and hardware tools to measure, optimize, and validate our main AI stack.

- Built and shipped multiple products, totaling >200k units, featured in Target, Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble- Built an incredibly strong team of software, hardware, and product people- Established strategic partnerships with the world's biggest players in the toy space (Mattel, Hasbro, WowWee, etc.)- Raised $4.4M of funding (Seed, Series A)

Stanford, CA, US

- Worked on developing a variable stiffness device using electroactive polymers for use in humanoid robotics - Developed new rapid prototyping methods, mechanical design and material selection to produce extremely thin actuators- Exploration of solid mechanics principles for thin polymers This work was done in Prof. Mark Cutkosky's Biomimetics and Dextrous.

Berkeley, CA, US

- Developed an active tail that allows our robots to turn at over 400 deg/sec, making them the world's fastest turning legged robots at the time- Developed an aerodynamic element that allows the robots to steer while running at high speeds without affecting leg gait. This is the first use of aerodynamics applied to steering in crawling/running robots that.

Berkeley, CA, US

For my master's work, I worked in the Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory under Professor Karl Hedrick. I worked toward the implementation of of a Model Predictive Control strategy to improve fuel economy using real-time traffic and location information. This work was was done in collaboration with the VW Electronic Research Lab in Palo Alto. This project also.

Berkeley, CA, US

Teaching Assistant for E7, Intro to Programming, Fall 2007, Fall 2009Teaching Assistant for ME 131, Vehicle Dynamics and Control, Spring 2009 (First ever TA for the course)

Dearborn, Michigan, US

- Analyzed effects of hysteresis on Ford Damper Models, reducing Ford’s real-world testing load- Contributed to Development of Ford-specific Tesis DYNAWare vehicle simulation software- Developed Model for predicting Fuel Economy changes based on Tire Rolling Resistance

Auburn Hills, MI, US

- Presented Concept Vehicle Proposal to Chrysler Group CEO and other Senior Executives- Collaborated with Industrial Design Interns to Create scale Vehicle- Employed Competitive Benchmarking and Engineering skills to determine vehicle packaging- Presented Intern Project Platform Sharing Strategy to Design Senior Management

Irving, Texas, US

- Redesigned air compressor cover to save company $40,000/year- Worked with team of engineers to redesign faulty exhaust manifold shield- Recommended changes to solve leakage problem in oil filter base

Doctor Of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering (Control Systems)

Master Of Science, Mechanical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science, Mechanical Engineering