I am a Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory in the Robust Robotics Group. My research centers on the development and application of algorithms that combine natural language understanding, optimization, search, and machine learning for autonomous robots operating in complex and unstructured environments. I will join the faculty of the University of Rochester in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as an Assistant Professor in January 2015.

Previously I was a Research Technologist II at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Robotic Software Systems group and a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. I earned my Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and hold Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Rochester.