External PhD Committees

I am always excited to serve on PhD committees outside of the University of Illinois. It exposes me to research ideas and culture in other places and gives me a chance to participate in many interesting topics. Below is a list of PhD students whose committees I have proudly served on.

  1. Israel Becerra Duran, Center for Mathematical Research (CIMAT), Guanajuato, Mexico, defended March 2015. Adviser: Rafael Murrieta.

  2. Tobias Kunz, Robotics, Georgia Tech, defended May 2015. Adviser: Henrik Christensen.

  3. Sertac Karaman, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, defended July 2013. Adviser: Emilio Frazzoli.

  4. Ioannis Karamouzas, University of Utrecht, defended October 2012. Advisers: Frank van der Stappen and Mark Overmars.

  5. Nikhil Karnad, Department of Computer Science, University of Minnesota, defended May 2012. Adviser: Volkan Isler.

  6. Mikhail Pivtoraiko, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, defended February 2012. Adviser: Al Kelly.

  7. Nora Ayanian, GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania, defended May 2011. Adviser: Vijay Kumar. Now a post-doc MIT.

  8. Alec Shkolnik, Motion Planning in High-Dimensional Underactuated Systems, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), MIT, defended December 2009. Adviser: Russ Tedrake.

  9. Andreas Kolling, Multi-Robot Pursuit-Evasion, School of Engineering, University of California Merced, defended December 2009. Adviser: Stefano Carpin.

  10. Liang-Jun Zhang, Efficient Motion Planning using Generalized Penetration Depth Computation, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, defended July 2009, now a post-doc at Stanford. Adviser: Dinesh Manocha.

  11. Chiara Fulgenzi, Autonomous Navigation in Dynamic Uncertain Environments Using Probabilistic Models of Perception and Collision Risk Prediction, INRIA Rhone-Alpes and Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, defended June 2009 (I served as Rapporteur). Adviser: Christian Laugier.

  12. Nuzhet Atay, Connectivity Maintenance and Task Allocation for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks, Department of Computer Science, Washington University, defended August 2008. Adviser: Burchan Bayazit.

  13. Juan-Pablo Gonzalez, Planning with Uncertainty in Position Using High-Resolution Maps, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, defended April 2008. Adviser: Tony Stentz.

  14. James Solberg, Motion and Sensing in Electrosensory Systems, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, defended November 2007. Advisers: Malcolm MacIver and Kevin Lynch.

  15. Tarik Nahhal, Model-Based Testing of Hybrid Systems, Joseph Fourier University and VERIMAG/CNRS, Grenoble, France, defended October 2007. Now at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco (t.nahhal@fsac.ac.ma). Advisers: Thao Dang and Oded Maler

  16. Aaron Morris, Robotic Introspection for Exploration and Mapping in Subterranean Environments, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, defended September 2007. Adviser: Red Whittaker.

  17. Jur van den Berg, Path Planning in Dynamic Environments. Department of Information and Computing Sciences, University of Utrecht, defended April 2007. Jur is currently a professor at the University of Utah. Adviser: Mark Overmars.

  18. Dave Ferguson, Single Agent and Multi-agent Path Planning in Unknown and Dynamic Environments, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, defended September 2006. Advisors: Tony Stentz and Sebastian Thrun. Dave works at Intel Research Pittsburgh and was the planning lead on the winning team of the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007. He is currently at Google.

  19. Chris Urmson, Navigation Regimes for Off-Road Autonomy, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, May 2005. Advisors: Reid Simmons and Red Whittaker. In 2007, Chris was the Director of Technology at CMU for the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge, and they won! He is currently at Google.

  20. Leonard Jaillet, Probabilistic Methods for the Planning of Reactive Movements (in French), LAAS/CNRS, Toulouse, France, defended 2005. Adviser: Nicola Simeon. Leonard is currently Post-Doc at Parc Tecnològic de Barcelona.

  21. Morten Strandberg, Robot Path Planning: An Object-Oriented Approach, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden (I served as Faculty Opponent), defended October, 2004. Adviser: Bo Wahlberg. Morten currently works for ABB robotics in Sweden.

  22. Prasun Choudhury, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, defended 2004. Adviser: Kevin Lynch.

  23. Juan Cortes, Motion Planning Algorithms for General Closed-Chain Mechanisms, LAAS/CNRS, Toulouse, France, defended December 2003 (I served as Rapporteur). Adviser: Nicola Simeon. Juan is currently Researcher of CNRS.

  24. Robert Bohlin, Robot Path Planning, Dept. of Industrial Mathematics, Chalmers University, Sweden (I served as Faculty Opponent), defended June, 2002. Adviser: Bo Johansson. Robert currently develops motion planning algorithms and tools for industry at the Chalmers Research Centre of Industrial Mathematics.