I fight for the user.

I’ve been in the robotics field for more than 15 years, specializing in how people interact with robots, both in real life and in simulation. A lot of my work has been in the industrial space, but more generally I’m interested in how people interact with systems that approximate human behavior, or approach human intelligence. This means how people interact with intelligent systems and AI.

I’m the inventor of multiple hardware and software systems for robots. My Ph.D. focused on building end-user programming tools for robots, including Behavior Trees and Flow Charts. This resulted in the award-winning Task Canvas, the easiest way to program an industrial robot. This work was called “the swiss army knife for robots” by INC. magazine and became a core app of ForgeOS from READY Robotics, which I co-founded in 2016. I’m the author of eight patent families with dozens of issued US and international patents.

I live at the intersection between a new, complex technology and the person using it, especially when that technology shows agency. My greatest strength is thinking problems are easier than they actually are, and finding solutions others think are impossible.