Introductions: Each panelist will introduce themselves in terms of their affiliation, career path and their current funding.
Agency Highlights: The panelists will highlight current activities and priorities in robotics from the funding agencies they are representing in the US and Korea, respectively.
Moderated Discussion: Panelists will discuss opportunities for international collaboration in robotics and potential avenues for funding such interactions including for US and Korean researchers.
Open Discussion: The audience can pose questions to our panelists.
For relevant information highlighting the activities and priorities in robotics from the NSF please check the Robotics@NSF page.
Bio: Jordan M. Berg is a Program Officer at the US National Science Foundation since 2014. NSF programs he has been associated with include the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF); Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR); EFRI C3 Soft Robotics (C3SoRo); EFRI Brain-Inspired Dynamics for Engineering Energy-Efficient Circuits and Artificial Intelligence (BRAID); the National Robotics Initiative (NRI); Dynamics, Control, and System Diagnostics (DCSD); Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus (M3X); Cyber Physical Systems (CPS); and the National AI Research Institutes (NAIRI). Prior to joining NSF, Dr Berg was professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University for 25 years. Dr Berg received the BSE and MSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University, and the MS in Mathematics and PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics from Drexel University. He has held visiting appointments at the US Air Force Research Labs, the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications at the University of Minnesota, and the Universities of Ruhuna and Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. His research interests include nonlinear control, modeling and control of micro- and nanosystems and material systems, mechatronics, robotics, human-technology interactions, and social and economic consequences of technological innovation.
Bio: Dr. Hyunsoo Woo is the Program Director (PD) of Robotics in Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT). He, as the PD, initiates, manages, and evaluates robotics R&D programs and also works with policy makers to promote robotics industries. He received B.S., M.S. and PhD degrees from Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in 2000, 2002, and 2009, respectively. Dr. Woo has been a senior and then principal researcher in Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) since 2010, primary research interest being development of medical and rehabilitation robots.
Introductions: Each panelist will describe their career path and current work in robotics.
Moderated Discussion: The moderator will pose questions to the panelists that will cover a broad set of topics. The discussion might touch upon recent developments and aspects of real-world production systems, and opportunities versus challenges in deploying modern research advances.
Open Discussion: The audience can pose questions to our panelists.
Bio: Peter Yu, co-founder and CTO of XYZ Robotics, received his Ph.D. in EECS from MIT in 2018 and started XYZ afterwards. His research interest was robotic manipulation, specifically, state estimation with physical contact to track object state during manipulation. He received Best Paper Finalist in IROS 2016. Besides academic research, he fought on the front line of robot systems with a belief that they could improve people’s lives. In 2013, he participated in DARPA Robotics Challenge to solve disaster relieve tasks. In 2015-2017, he served as the system lead in Amazon Robotics Challenge, and won First Place in Stowing task in 2017.
Bio: Lukas Kaul is a research scientist at the Toyota Research Institute, with strong theoretical background and hands-on experience in building, integrating and controlling autonomous systems. He is commited to a mission of creating a future where robotics amplifies the human experience.
Bio: Inmo Jang is a Principal Robotics Applied Scientist/Engineer at Samsung, and also an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Manchester. He is currently working for connecting between the robot technology being developed in academia and the requirements of the users in inspection/maintenance of infrastructures. His research interests range over the areas of multi-robot/agent systems, decentralised autonomous decision-making, control and navigation for robots, human multi-robot interaction, and their real-world applications. Prior to joining Samsung, he was a postdoctoral research associate in Robotics for Extreme Environment Group at the University of Manchester, where he was involved in RAIN(Robotics and AI in Nuclear) project, one of the four big robotics and AI projects funded by EPSRC. He was also a JAEA NEST Fellow (visiting researcher) at the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2020. Since 2015, He has worked towards decision making of multi-robot systems and finished PhD in Cranfield University, UK, under Prof Hyo-Sang Shin and Prof Antonios Tsourdos. In South Korea, he worked at Korea Aerospace Industries, Ltd., and also worked at Korea Institute of Aviation Safety Technology in total 5+ years. Before that, he completed MSc/BSc in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in Seoul National University, S.Korea.
Bio: Charles is a Senior Manager, Software Development at Amazon Robotics in Seattle, Washington, USA.