Postdoctoral Researcher @ The University of Tokyo, Mechano-Informatics Department, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Tokyo/Japan

Research Interests: Humanoid robots: locomotion and control techniques, intelligent control

The Society is interested in both applied and theoretical issues in robotics and automation. Robotics is here defined to include intelligent machines and systems used, for example, in space exploration, human services, or manufacturing; whereas automation includes the use of automated methods in various applications, for example, factory, office, home, laboratory automation, or transportation systems to improve performance and productivity.
Robotics and Automation involves designing and implementing intelligent machines which can do work too dirty, too dangerous, too precise or too tedious for humans. It also pushes the boundary on the level of intelligence and capability for many forms of autonomous, semi-autonomous and teleoperated machines. Intelligent machines have applications in medicine, defense, space and underwater exploration, service industries, disaster relief, manufacturing and assembly and entertainment.

The first edition of the IEEE Robotics and Automation email newsletter was sent out on October 14, 2003 to everyone in the Society whose correct email address is in the IEEE data base.
The newsletter will be sent out every month to six weeks by the IEEE. It includes includes action items for RAS members, breaking news, calendar updates and other time sensitive information. The goal is to inform members, not to annoy them. They are keeping it plain ascii text in order to make it convenient for people who use Pine or whose computer security does not permit attachments and to avoid downloading delays and other nasties.(although the newsletter is scanned with the same filters as the email through IEEE aliases.)

The article entitled "Women in Robotics for Communication and Outreach" was published in RASeNews, the IEEE Robotics and Automation email newsletter on June 14, 2006.

Bibliography: Mihoko Otake and Keiko Homma, "Women in Robotics for Communication and Outreach", RASeNews, the IEEE Robotics and Automation email newsletter, June 14, 2006.

Research topic of the laboratory includes humanoid robots, dynamics-based information processing, human figures, and medical robotics.

MIRALab is a creative lab which benefits from an interdisciplinary team working in a very collaborative way.
The MIRALab research group at the University of Geneva was founded in 1989 by Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann.

Taking inspiration and guidance from the science of animal and human behavior, our goal is to build cooperative robots that can work and learn in partnership with people. Not only an engineering endeavour, we hope to gain scientific insight into the mechanisms that underlie this human and animal competence, and to develop a science of human-robot collaboration. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of this endeavor, our research explores a wide variety of topics including:

- Novel mechanical designs
- New sensing and actuator technologies
- Active multi-modal perceptual systems
- Natural language and gesture interfaces
- Expressive movement and skillful motor control
- Social learning
- Psychological modeling
- Human-robot interaction and collaboration

The Haptic Exploration Laboratory works with both robotic haptics and human-machine haptic interfaces. In the area of robotic haptics, we enable robots to explore the world through touch, using specialized robotic fingers and sensors and the appropriate planning and control. We are developing new finger designs and algorithms for autonomous and teleoperated haptic exploration. In the area of human-machine haptic interfaces, haptic interfaces are used to add the sense of touch to virtual and teleoperated environments. By creating physically-based mathematical models of interactions in real environments, we can enhance the realism of virtual environments. In addition, haptic feedback and active augmentation modes can improve the performance of robotic assistants in tele- and cooperative manipulation. These systems are evaluated using control theoretic and experimental approaches. This research has applications in many areas, including computer-assisted and simulated surgery, autonomous exploration of hazardous or remote environments, undersea salvage, enabling technologies, and manufacturing and design. Sponsors of our work include NSF, NIH and the Whitaker Foundation. The lab director is Dr. Allison Okamura.

Assistant Professor
Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies,
the College of Letters and Science,
University of California, Berkeley

Her work has been seen in numerous festivals, including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art Summer Solstice Celebration, Dance Chicago, and the Performing Arts Chicago PAC/edge Festival. In January 2004, she traveled to Vietnam working on a project entitled Artistic Voices Across Cultures in Collaboration.

The Microscale Life Sciences Center is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) Center of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS). It resides at the University of Washington (UW) and includes investigators from UW and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle. The MLSC is one of the first of three CEGS ever funded by the NIH NHGRI in the nation.
The MLSC or "life-on-a-chip" involves 10 investigators from the UW Departments of Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Microbiology, Laboratory Medicine, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The Center started in August 2001, is funded for 5 years at $15 million, and may be renewed for another 5 years.