Principal architect, developer, and product manager for the ROS 2 Navigation stack, Nav2.You Friendly Neighborhood Navigator

- Board member of the Aerospace Alumni Strategic Advisory Committee at the University of Illinois- Reviewing and consulting about changes in curriculum, programs, and growth

- Overseeing the development of the Robot Operating System 2 (ROS 2) and key ecosystem packages, such as Nav2- Establishing roadmaps and design directions for large autonomous robotics projects in all subsystems- Leading new technical initiatives and having regular meetings with contributors to unblock / assist- Recruiting and building coalitions with companies, researchers, and students - Advocate for open-source, ROS, Nav2, and Samsung- Publishing peer-reviewed academic papers regarding novel contributions to the field

- Open Robotics' ROS2 Technical Steering Committee (TSC) board member. This is the governing board for ROS - ROS Navigation Working Group Lead- TechCrunch, RoboBusiness, ROS World, Autoware Academy speaker (and more)- 2020 Best ROS Developer Award- 2021 Best ROS Developer Award- 2021 Best ROS Software Award- Regular Internal Samsung Recognition of Excellence: Employee Spotlight, Spot Awards, All-hands meeting recognition for research excellence, acknowledgment from Senior and Executive Vice Presidents. - Samsung Research Spot Award Recipient for excellence in Robotics technology development - Primary maintainer and developer on critical ROS2 packages including rclcpp, Navigation2, Image Pipeline, Robot Localization, Slam Toolbox, and more- Developing, executing, and leading Samsung's Robotics OS Strategy and community engagement- Influencing community direction and creating new robotics research with strong open source support based on my research interests. - Refined and published SLAM Toolbox, the now default SLAM package for ROS2.- Interviewed on twice on the Ros Developer's Podcast and The Contributors Podcast.- Managing projects with remote engineering team.- Lead development of new perception, planning, control, and behavioral algorithms. Also individually developed new multimodal motion planners, novel path tracking controllers, and perception algorithms. - #1 contributor to ROS 2 Navigation in lines, PRs, commits, and packages- deep understanding of all mobile robotics sub-discipline technologies at an algorithmic and system level.- Published numerous peer-reviewed papers in top conferences, journals, and industry events.

- Software robotics engineer supporting Tally, an autonomous mobile robot for store auditing and analytics- Formulating new approaches for obstacle avoidance, tracking, and response in chaotic unstructured environments- Architecting and testing modern navigation software and algorithms- Generating new robot behaviors and enabling next generation autonomy (social behaviors, autodocking, etc)- Building robotics infrastructure, high level autonomy, and tools for automation of robot deployment- Contributor to: ros-planning/Navigation, robot_localization, rosdistro, VN-100 IMU Driver, Intel Realsense Drivers- Maintainer of: ros-perception/image_pipeline, ros-planning/Navigation2- Architecting and maintainer of a new environmental representation ROS package - the Spatio-Temporal Voxel Grid. Indexed, builds with the ROS buildfarm, and bloom released. ROSCon 2018 talk.- Architecting and maintainer of a new life-long, fast, and robust lidar SLAM package, SLAM Toolbox ROS package allowing for continuing old maps and serializing pose-graph data to file for offline merging. - Utilizing strong background with a variety of senors and packages to evaluate, integrate, and test new sensors and other components for future revision cycles- Integrated state estimation software to improve robust localization- Working with modern SLAM techniques and optimizers for increasing environmental representation fidelity, usability, and speed, including g2O, Ceres, SBA, and GTSAM. - Generating Pointcloud proccessing pipelines for scene understanding and classification

-Executed on Helix Experiments testing dynamic models of rods and completing data analysis for publication. Utilizing openCV for visual rod segmentation and analysis, RAPID for controller-level interaction with ROS, and openGL for simulation-Researched path planning of the manipulation of elastic rods to be more computationally efficient via collision detection with future ambitions in planning algorithm development (C++)-Integrating computer vision to research various features of flexible material dynamics (C++)-Composed ROS-RAPID drivers to power 2 ABB IRB120 robotic manipulators in parallel in single controller multi-group configuration (RAPID, Python, C++)-Formulated a mesh collision detection system in PQP for collisions between multiple robots and deformable objects-Built a simulation environment in openGL for kinematic/dynamic validation of collision detector and manipulation of elastic rods

-Stringer Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT) employee contacted to support the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO)-Obtained certification to control the fleet of industrial robotic arms to train new operators and improve processes-Operated 5 industrial manipulator manufacturers: Motoman SAI50/SAI20, Fanuc, and Cyton 1500/300-Assisted in the safety and requirements verification of a new Engineering Development Unit (EDU) robot arm-Established operator’s manuals to mandate test procedure for space-flight control boards (JCB) and EDU operation-Formulating forward and inverse kinematics, manipulator dynamics, trajectories, non-linear control, and more on a simulated robot arm-Devising a framework to generate config files for joint configuration parameters and support frequent revisions with ease -Creating a custom ROS package and interface to operate industrial robotic manipulators (C++, Python, Gazebo)-Wrote a Spacecraft-Robotic Manipulator dynamic simulation to accept Joint Space and Cartesian Space controls in Matlab-Creating a second custom ROS command and analysis package for a 7 DOF robotic manipulator with an openGL simulation environment-Leveraged Dynamixel drivers to build up IK services, path planning nodes, and simulations before hardware motion for operations on an industrial robotic manipulator-Developed optimal collision detection software for flight processors supporting RESTORE-L mission.

Planet Labs Mission Operations Intern (Spaceship Captain-Intern) -Built ground station and satellite Python tools for the Spaceship Captains in satellite operations -Added automation of daily email programs to yield alerts, alarms, and statistics about the fleet-Produced alerts for malfunctioning battery heaters, satellite state metadata audits, disk usage, and fill/drain of disk space-Heavily modified and improved anomaly detection and response on the fleet of over 60 satellites-Executed on a battery heater set point experiment to ensure proper heating of satellite batteries on-orbit-Assisted in commissioning 24 Doves (satellites) by automated status reports and notifications of changes on-orbit

-Published risk analysis for the satellite’s structure, thermal protection, and integrated systems -Operating the Thermal Vacuum Chamber for space readiness qualifying tests and defining testing procedures -Defined high level development, testing, and production timelines -Co-Founder and Director of Research and Development for an undergraduate branch off club; leading students through technical studies for future missions, planning and executing flight payloads for a CubeSat, and developing new technologies for use in these missions

-Redrafted and reconciled an international (ISO) standard for the safety of highly automated machinery -Held meetings with ISO/TC 23/SC3 Chairman (US) and Secretary (Germany) to reconcile technical concerns-Developed four internal standards for Deere’s Waterloo unit-Wrote python programs to create and analyze data sets to establish homologous cautions in operator manuals