HumAnSLab

Dr. Ayanna Howard
received her B.S. in Engineering from Brown University, her M.S.E.E. from the University of Southern California, and her Ph.D. in
Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 1999. Her area of research is centered around the
concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems.
This work, which addresses issues of autonomous control as well as aspects of interaction with humans and the surrounding
environment, has resulted in over 70 written publications focused on a number of projects – from autonomous rover navigation for
planetary surface exploration to intelligent terrain assessment algorithms for landing on Mars. To date, her unique accomplishments
have been documented in over 12 featured articles – including being named as one of the world’s top young innovators of 2003 by the
prestigious MIT Technology Review journal and in TIME magazine’s “Rise of the Machines” article in 2004. From 1993-2005, Dr. Howard
was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where she led research efforts on various robotic
projects utilizing vision, fuzzy logic, and neural network methodologies. Following this, she joined Georgia Tech’s School of
Electrical and Computer Engineering as an Associate Professor and founded the Human-Automation Systems (HumAnS) Laboratory.

Chung Hyuk Park

I received my B.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science from Seoul National University, located in Seoul, Korea. I came to Georgia Institute of Technology to pursue a
doctoral degree, and to immerse myself in the topics of Control Systems, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. During the MS period,
I had joined the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab and focused my studies in the areas of Haptics and mobile robotics. Then, I
worked for LG Electronics Co. participating in several projects of embedded systems and ASIC, through which I could gain field
knowledge and wide sight into the electronics industry. During my free times, I enjoy playing badminton and tennis, and also love
traveling around and taking photos of beautiful sceneries. I spent my early childhood in Athens, Georgia, and interestingly, came
back to study at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia. My current research interests lies in Human Robot Interaction, approaching from
viewpoints of Haptics and Vision, and hope to contribute to the future of Robotics research.

Stephen Williams

I received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The
University of Texas; Arlington, a satellite campus near Dallas. I found that the field of controls and robotics was a perfect melding
of the two degrees, and tailored my undergraduate course work to emphasize this. To help fund my education, I worked part time at
Chaparral Steel, the third largest structural steel manufacturer in North America, and continued my employment full-time after
graduation. My duties consisted primarily of PLC programming, data acquisition, and database design. After three years in the
manufacturing industry, I wanted to be involved with something more cutting-edge. I am currently working on projects relating to
robotics and machine vision in the pursuit of my doctorate in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Lonnie Parker

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Lonnie Parker received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Rochester
Institute of Technology in 2006, in Rochester, NY. His thesis work was based on the modeling of a ground penetrating radar (GPR)
system using a customized MATLAB-based GUI. His varied work assignments in industry include product development at Bosch Security
Systems in Munich, Germany, GPR research at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, NY and product marketing at Texas Instruments
in Sherman, TX. His interest in robotics was engendered by a summer research program in 2006 at the Georgia Institute of Technology
where he is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His PhD research involves the development
of a multi-agent robotic surveying system used for increasing information gain of variable terrain. This increase in collected data
aids earth scientists conducting field experiments under harsh conditions. Lonnie is a dedicated Christian and student of the Bible.
He also enjoys playing guitar and staying physically active, playing tennis, basketball and golf whenever time permits. He can be
reached at: lonnie@gatech.edu

Hae Won Park

Hae Won Park received her B.S in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH, Korea in
2006. For her thesis project, she built a 52cm 23-DOF Humanoid that could walk and follow objects while avoiding obstacles. She has
industry experience at Samsung Electronics, which includes mobile-phone hardware/software development and software testing. Her
career in Robotics took a first step at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology as a research scientist in the Center for
Cognitive Robotics research group. There she managed projects related to object recognition using local PCA features and multi-modal
object learning for home robots. Her PhD research interests at Georgia Tech include Human Robot Interaction, Computer Vision, A.I.
and Robot Toys. She grew up in Seoul, Korea and spent her childhood in Surrey, United Kingdom. Later on, she participated in an
exchange program at the University of Waterloo, Canada. During these times, she visited a lot of places around the world and
traveling soon became her best leisure activity. She also enjoys playing tennis, basketball, and snowboarding.

Douglas Antwonne Brooks

Douglas Brooks was raised in Pittsboro, North Carolina. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from
North Carolina State University on December 14, 2005. He has two years of industry work experience that include both Square D Company
and Texas Instruments where he worked with power electronics and ASIC respectively. As a participant of SURE (Summer Undergraduate
Research for Engineers) at Georgia Tech, Douglas gained valuable research experience in the area of semiconductor lighting. Douglas
has received numerous honors and awards, which include the following: GEM Fellowship, Georgia Tech FOCUS Scholar, and Academic
Excellence Award at NC State University. Recently, Douglas was deemed as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Alumni at NC State
University and was pictured in the Black Alumni Society (50^th Commemorative Anniversary Edition) magazine. Douglas’s
research investigates a navigation control methodology for a wheel-legged robot based on active vision. Douglas’s MS Thesis research
investigates a navigation control methodology for a wheel-legged robot based on active vision. His PhD research investigates the use
of a socially intelligent robot to assess child-robot interaction. In his spare time, he enjoys playing basketball, singing, and
dancing (salsa).

Gregorio Drayer

Gregorio Drayer is a doctoral student in electrical and computer
engineering at Georgia Tech, with a minor in aerospace engineering. He
works with Dr. Ayanna Howard at the Human-Automation Systems Lab,
where he develops a human-oriented multi-agent integration methodology
for the automation of complex socio-technical systems.

Automation, which is characterized by the use of sensors and feedback,
is supposed to make human interaction with these systems less
difficult. His idea is to make use of sensor and other kinds of
information to combine a variety of control actions depending on the
operating condition of such systems. His methodology would help
operators gain situational awareness, intervene, and reach different
levels of automation if necessary. He currently makes use of a
small-scale aquatic habitat for experiments related to life support
systems.

During his stay at Georgia Tech, Gregorio also participates in the Sam
Nunn Security Program of the School of International Affairs, in
which he receives intensive training in research approaches and policy
formulation methods to address national and international security
issues.

A native of Venezuela, Gregorio received both Engineer’s and
Magister’s degrees from Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, where he
also taught undergraduate courses and received academic tenure. He has
received various awards from Caltech, the School of Engineers of
Venezuela, and the World Future Society Venezuela. His name appears in
the 28th Marquis edition of Who’s Who in the World and his Ph.D work
is sponsored by the first International Fulbright Science and
Technology Scholarship awarded to a Venezuelan by the U.S. Department
of State. Gregorio enjoys astronomy, racquetball, dancing, and running
waves at the beach. He hopes to become the first Venezuelan
astronaut.

Brian Smith

I grew up in south Georgia, where I attended
high school Flint River Academy and graduated Valedictorian in 1996. I graduated from Georgia Tech in 2004 in Computer Engineering
with High Honors. Currently, I am a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering. During my time at Georgia Tech, I have led
many groups in robotics projects, as well as performing teaching assistantships in computer science, digital design, and computer
architecture courses. I also wrote a paper with Dr. Sung-Kyu Lim on QCA channel routing, which was accepted and presented at the
GLSVLSI Conference in 2005. However, applied robotics has always been my area of greatest interest. I look forward to contributing to
robotics research for space robotics applications.

Sekou Remy

Sekou Remy received his B.S. in Electrical
Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (2002), B. S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College (2002), and his M.S. in
Electrical Engineering also from Georgia Institute of Technology (2004). In the early phases of graduate school Mr. Remy began the
transition from an emphasis on telecommunications to an emphasis on robotics, addressing a deep-seated interest in the so called
‘intelligent agent’. As a former competitive swimmer, and the grandson of a fisherman and reef pioneer, Mr. Remy enjoys aquatics and
has a love for sailing and other minimally invasive water sports. Both teaching and vision development in youth are passions of this
son of Trinidad and Tobago who is currently pursuing a doctorate in Electrical Engineering.

Antidio Viguria

Antidio Viguria was born is Spain where he received his Telecommunication Engineering degree (1999-2004) at the University of
Seville being the third best record of his class. Afterwards, he became a Ph.D student at the Department of Ingenier a de Sistemas y
Automtica and worked as a researcher in the Robotics, Control and Vision research group directed by Anibal Ollero Baturone. During
that time, he was involved in various robotics projects and started studying about multi-robot problems. In July 2006, he obtained
the Advanced Studies Diploma (DEA) at University of Seville for his work on distributed task allocation among robots. Nowadays, he is
a Masters student at Georgia Institute of Technology (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering) funded by a Fulbright
scholarship. He continues working in the multi-robot field in the HumAns Lab.

Matt Joseph Livianu

I was born in Montreal, Canada, to Romanian parents and migrated to California with my
family at the age of 7. I was multi-lingual from an early age, speaking Romanian at home, English with friends, and French at school.
By the time I finished high school, I picked up some Spanish as well and had the opportunity to put Spanish skills to the test during
one very memorable trip to Chile in my second year of college at Harvey Mudd. In addition to traveling to foreign lands, I spent a
considerable amount of time at Harvey Mudd College learning AI and designing, building, and programming various mobile robots that
found fire, followed walls, and navigated using GPS. For non-technical fun, I competed with the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance
Company for four years and won the Collegiate Formation Team Championships in 2002. I graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 2004 with
a B.S. in Computer Science. With a newfound affinity for air I could see, I decided to remain in smoggy southern California, where I
performed signal integrity analysis for space hardware at Raytheon Company SAS. Currently, I am Masters student at Georgia Tech,
where I am studying systems and controls and computer engineering. My research is focused on intelligent controls for autonomous
mobile robotics, both from a theoretical and electronics design standpoint. I still have an avid love for travel and ballroom dance,
but also try to find time for flight lessons and backpacking.

Volkan Oktem, Masters in Electrical
and Computer Engineering

Project: An Interactive Human-Robot Interface for use in Space Mission

Byron Edward Johns, Masters in Mechanical Engineering

Thesis: Design and Control of a New Reconfigurable Robotic Mobility Platform

Visit his page for the Byrobot [also featured on the science driven robotics page]