About Me
I am the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Outreach Program Manager at iRobot Corporation. I lead iRobot's efforts to promote STEM education through the use of robots both in and out of the classroom.
Projects
My current projects include:
- SPARK, an educational robotics web portal which features links to curricula and activities for students in kindergarten through college. SPARK includes information on a variety of robotics platforms as well as articles demonstrating how educators around the United States are utilizing robotics to teach students. Feel free to visit the SPARK website or follow SPARK on Twitter @iRobotSPARK.
- The STREAM workshop series for teachers, which offers sessions illustrating how to use different robotic technologies to teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STREAM 2010 is scheduled for June 24--25, 2010. For more information on the STREAM 2009 workshop, click here.
I also help to coordinate school tours of iRobot, Demo Days during which iRobot employees visit schools, and STEM-related volunteer opportunities for iRobot employees. If you are in the Boston area and would like to request a tour or school visit for your group, please click here.
Educational Background
Before joining iRobot, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Computer Science Department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. I worked primarily with Holly Yanco and the UML Robotics Lab.
I received my MS and PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University under my advisors, Illah Nourbakhsh and David Wettergreen. The major contribution of my PhD thesis is Robot-Proxy Grounding, an application of common ground theory which focuses on promoting common ground between people and robots who are collaborating on an exploration task.
I completed my undergraduate degree, a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Anthropology, at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
My curriculum vitae is available in PDF format here.