Director of Engineering

I am passionate about building teams that use techniques from the fields of Machine Learning, Robotics, Optimal Control, Combinatorial Optimization, Search, and Numerical Math to develop intelligent systems and software to develop real world products. I enjoy working in interdisciplinary teams that drive towards launching products that will have a transformational impact on the world.

I had the opportunity to work with amazing colleagues at Woven by Toyota, Lyft Level 5 (Woven by Toyota acquired Lyft Level 5), Apple, DLR (the German Aerospace Center) pursuing projects in the areas of Machine Learning, Mission Planning and Execution, Decision Making algorithms, Motion Planning, Trajectory Optimization, Numerical Optimization, and Guidance and Control of autonomous systems.

This blog post describes the work of my team on deploying a machine-learning first motion planner in San Francisco.

I am on LinkedIn and have tweeted under @RobotsEngineer in the past. Finally, my publications can be found here, on Google Scholar, and on ResearchGate. 

I received a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan. My research focused on the robust integration of High Level Planning and Motion Planning for autonomous vehicles. Specifically, my dissertation develops methods to assess robustness of optimal mission plans for unmanned aircraft in dynamic environments. Additionally, my research has applications in the broader field of combinatorial optimization for example in vehicle routing, runway scheduling, and communication network design. 

A high-level description of my PhD work can be found in this YouTube video, which I recorded while participating in a workshop on science communication during the summer of 2014.