The order is alphabetically
Dr Sylvain Calinon is a Senior Research Scientist at the Idiap Research Institute (https://idiap.ch), heading the Robot Learning & Interaction group. He is also a Lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). From 2009 to 2014, he was a Team Leader at the Italian Institute of Technology. From 2007 to 2009, he was a Postdoc in the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory, EPFL, where he obtained his PhD in 2007. His research interests cover robot learning, human-robot collaboration and optimal control. Website: https://calinon.ch
Talk title: Robot learning of manipulation skills by exploiting variable impedance. [abstract][talk]
Adrià Colomé is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Insistut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial in Barcelona. His research and interests are on robot motion learning and control, with real applications in domestic environments and to cloth manipulation. Adrià has published research articles on dimensionality reduction techniques applied to robot motion learning and control, robot motion characterization, reinforcement learning, or variable impedance control.
Colomé recieved his Licenciate degree in Mathematics in 2009, as well as a degree in Industrial Engineering in the same year, both at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). After pursuing a Master in Robotics, he received his PhD also at the UPC in 2017, for which he was awarded with the Robotnik prize to the best Spanish robotics PhD thesis, and was a finalist for the Georges Giralt award to the best European thesis in robotics in the same year.
Talk title: Dynamic cloth manipulation. Challenges in controlling cloth's motion. [abstract][talk]
Professor Dongheui Lee is Associate Professor of Human-centered Assistive Robotics at the TUM Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is also director of a Human-centered assistive robotics group at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Her research interests include human motion understanding, human robot interaction, machine learning in robotics, and assistive robotics.
Prior to her appointment as Associate Professor, she was an Assistant Professor at TUM (2009-2017), Project Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo (2007-2009), and a research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) (2001-2004). After completing her B.S. (2001) and M.S. (2003) degrees in mechanical engineering at Kyung Hee University, Korea, she went on to obtain a PhD degree from the department of Mechano-Informatics, University of Tokyo, Japan in 2007. She was awarded a Carl von Linde Fellowship at the TUM Institute for Advanced Study (2011) and a Helmholtz professorship prize (2015). She is coordinator of both the euRobotics Topic Group on physical Human Robot Interaction and of the TUM Center of Competence Robotics, Autonomy and Interaction.
Talk title: Variable Impedance Learning and Adaptation for Interaction Tasks. [abstract][talk]
Neville Hogan is Sun Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a Diploma in Engineering (with distinction) from Dublin Institute of Technology and M.S., Mechanical Engineer and Ph.D. degrees from MIT. He joined MIT’s faculty in 1979 and presently directs the Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation. He co-founded Interactive Motion Technologies, now part of Bionik Laboratories. His research includes robotics, motor neuroscience, and rehabilitation engineering, emphasizing the control of physical contact and dynamic interaction. Awards include: Honorary Doctorates from Delft University of Technology and Dublin Institute of Technology; the Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland; the Saint Patrick’s Day Medal for Academia from Science Foundation Ireland; the Henry M. Paynter Outstanding Investigator Award and the Rufus T. Oldenburger Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Dynamic Systems and Control Division; and from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Academic Career Achievement Award from the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and the Pioneers in Robotics Award from the Robotics and Automation Society.
Talk title: Mechanical Impedance Compositionality Manages Many Degrees of Freedom. [abstract][talk]
Meghan E. Huber is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at University of Massachusetts Amherst and leads the new Human Robot Systems Laboratory (HRSL). Her research aims to advance how humans and robots learn from one another through physical interaction. Prior to joining UMass Amherst, she was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2016-2020. She received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University in 2009, M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2011, and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Northeastern University in 2016. During her doctoral training, she was also a Visiting Junior Scientist in the Autonomous Motion Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany in 2014.
Talk title: Human control and perception of physical interaction: Implications for human-robot systems. [abstract][talk]
Dr Matthew Howard is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Robotics Research, Department of Engineering, King's College London. Prior to joining King's in 2013, he held a Japan Society for Promotion of Science fellowship at the Department of Mechanoinformatics at the University of Tokyo and was a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh from 2009-2012. He also obtained his PhD in 2009 at Edinburgh with an EPSRC CASE award sponsored by Honda Research. His research interests span the fields of robotics and autonomous systems, statistical machine learning and adaptive control. His current work focuses on teaching and learning of robotic motor skills by demonstration, especially for soft robotic devices, based on human musculoskeletal control. He works with a number of large companies in bringing automation to agri-food production through collaborative robots.
Talk title: Teaching Human Teachers to Learn to Teach Robot Learners. [abstract][talk]
Luka Peternel received a Ph.D. in robotics from Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2015. He conducted his Ph.D. studies at Department for Automation, Biocybernetics and Robotics, Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana from 2011 to 2015, and at the Department of Brain-Robot Interface, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan in 2013 and 2014. He was with the Human-Robot Interfaces and Physical Interaction Lab, Advanced Robotics, Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy from 2015 to 2018. From 2019 he is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cognitive Robotics, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Talk title: Ergonomic control of human-robot co-manipulation. [abstract][talk]
Masayoshi Tomizuka received his B.S. and M.S. from Keio University in 1968 and 1970, respectively. He received his Ph. D. from MIT in 1974, after which he joined the ME Department at UC Berkeley. Here, he served as the Vice Chair of Instruction from Dec. 1989 to Dec. 1991, and as the Vice Chair of graduate studies from Jul. 1995 to Dec. 1996.
He is currently the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley. From 2009 to 2011, he was the Executive Associate Dean for the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley. He also served as Program Director of the Dynamic Systems and Control Program at the National Science Foundation from Sept. 2002 to Dec. 2004. His research interests include optimal and adaptive control, digital control, signal processing, motion control, mechatronics and their applications in robotics, manufacturing, data storage devices, vehicles, and human-machine systems.
Changhao Wang is a third-year Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley advised by Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka. His research interest lies in the interdisciplinary combination of robotics, optimization, reinforcement learning and control theories with applications to robotic manipulation, motion planning, and robot skill learning.
Talk title: Safe OnGO-VIC: Online Gain Optimization for Variable Impedance Control [abstract][talk]
Tom Verstraten received his Master in Electromechanical Engineering from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 2012 and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 2018. He was appointed as assistant professor at the Robotics & Multibody Mechanics Research Group (R&MM) of the VUB in 2020. He was awarded fellowships of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) for both his doctoral and postdoctoral research, as well as a Fulbright grant for visiting scholars for a research stay at the University of Tulsa (United States) in 2018-19. He also worked in industry as a R&D Engineer at Aquasystems International (2012-13) and as a visiting researcher at TU Darmstadt (Germany) in 2017. His main research focus is the study and development of energy-efficient actuation systems for robotic prostheses, exoskeletons and collaborative robots. Research interests include elastic actuators and redundant actuation.
Talk title: Design concepts for energy-efficient variable impedance actuators. [abstract][talk]