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Affiliated PhD Student

Spencer Folk

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PhD Candidate at GRASP Lab

About

Spencer is a robotics researcher at the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania where he studies how wind affects perception, planning, and control for UAVs operating in urban environments. His approach harnesses synergies between classical model-based estimation algorithms, machine learning, and fluid dynamics to enable fast predictions of urban wind flow fields from minimal onboard sensors and computation. Spencer strives to enable UAVs to reason about the complex wind that forms within the urban canopy layer and use this capability to operate safely, efficiently, and autonomously in future city airspaces. 

Beyond his role as a PhD student at GRASP, Spencer works with NASA as a Pathways Intern, utilizing UAVs as mobile in-situ wind sensors. This initiative aims to improve the accuracy and timeliness of urban weather forecasts, inform policy for future urban airspaces, and catalyze advancements in urban air mobility technologies. Prior to his PhD, his previous research for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory centered on designing 3D printed UAVs. Looking ahead, Spencer aspires to one day develop algorithms for extraterrestrial UAV probes, empowering the scientific exploration of our solar system's atmospheres.

Spencer holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College and an M.S.E. in Robotics from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Faculty Fellow

Vijay Kumar

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Professor and Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

About

Vijay Kumar is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kumar received his Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987. Dr. Kumar served as the Deputy Dean for Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Science from 2000-2004. He directed the GRASP Laboratory, a multidisciplinary robotics and perception laboratory, from 1998-2004. He was the Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from 2005-2008. He served as the Deputy Dean for Education in the  School of Engineering and Applied Science from 2008-2012. He then served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012 – 2013). Dr. Kumar is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2003), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers(2005) and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2013). Dr. Kumar’s research interests are in robotics, specifically multi-robot systems, and micro aerial vehicles. He has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics and the Springer Tract in Advanced Robotics (STAR). He currently serves as Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics and as Advisory Board Member of the AAAS Science Robotics Journal. He is the recipient of the 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award, the 1996 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (University of Pennsylvania), the 1997 Freudenstein Award for significant accomplishments in mechanisms and robotics, the 2012 ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Award, the 2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award, a 2012 World Technology Network (wtn.net) award, a 2014 Engelberger Robotics Award and the 2017 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation.  He has won best paper awards at DARS 2002, ICRA 2004, ICRA 2011, RSS 2011, and RSS 2013, and has advised doctoral students who have won Best Student Paper Awards at ICRA 2008, RSS 2009, and DARS 2010.

Selected Publications

Ehsani and Das, “Yield estimation in citrus with SUAVs,” Citrus Extension Trade Journals, pp. 16-18, 2016. 

Concha, Loianno, Kumar, and Civera, “Visual-inertial direct SLAM,” in 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016, pp. 1331-1338. 

Wong, Steager, and Kumar, “Independent Control of Identical Magnetic Robots in a Plane,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 1, iss. 1, pp. 554-561, 2016. 

Hunter, Chodosh, Steager, and Kumar, “Control of microstructures propelled via bacterial baths,” in 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016, pp. 1693-1700. 

Kessens, Thomas, Desai, and Kumar, “Versatile Aerial Grasping Using Self-Sealing Suction,” in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Stockholm, 2016. 
 

Faculty Fellow

Megan Ryerson

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UPS Chair of Transportation, Associate Chair

About

Megan Ryerson is an Associate Professor in the Departments of City and Regional Planning and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Research Director of the Mobility21 Transportation Research Center, a national University Transportation Center (UTC) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Through Mobility21, supported by a five-year transportation research grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Dr. Ryerson and her team are committed to examining cross-disciplinary problems such as autonomous vehicles, intercity transportation planning, and pedestrian and bicycle safety to improve accessibility and mobility for specific populations. Dr. Ryerson’s major contributions are in the field of transportation infrastructure planning and demand forecasting. Her work has investigated how airports compete for air service across megaregions, how airlines can reconfigure their disaster planning to achieve more resilient outcomes, and how flights can be planned more proactive to reduce fuel consumption. Dr. Ryerson is a member of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation State Transportation Innovation Council, the Board of Advisors for the Eno Center for Transportation, the Women’s Transportation Seminar Philadelphia Chapter, and she was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation and the Governor of Pennsylvania to aviation-related advisory committees. In 2015 Dr. Ryerson was named “Woman of the Year” by the Women’s Transportation Seminar-Philadelphia Chapter.

Selected Publications

Ryerson, M.S. 2017 (in press). “Diversion Ahead: Modeling the Factors Driving Diversion Airport Choice After an Unexpected Airport Outage.” Journal of Infrastructure Systems.

Suh, D., M.S. Ryerson. 2017.” Adaptive Airport Planning Frameworks and Techniques for a New Era of Planning.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2603: 1–15. 

Ryerson, M.S. 2016. “Incentivize It and They Will Come? How Some of the Busiest U.S. Airports are Building Air Service with Incentive Programs.” Journal of the American Planning Association 82(4): 303-315.

Ryerson, M.S., Woodburn, A. 2014. “Build Capacity or Manage Demand: Can regional planners lead American aviation into a new frontier of demand management?” Journal of the American Planning Association 80(2): 138-152. 

Faculty Fellow

Saswati Sarkar

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Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering

About

Saswati Sarkar is Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Her research interests are in the science and economics of various classes of networks – for example, communication, social, transportation, power, and economic networks – with an emphasis on pricing and market economics, security, resource allocation, optimization and control of stochastic systems, distributed systems, and algorithms as well as sustainable development. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. She received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2003.

Selected Publications

Ghosh, Arnob, Saswati Sarkar, Randall Berry. 2017. “The Value of Side-Information in Secondary Spectrum Markets.” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 35(1).

Bera, Susanta, Moumita Pal, Saswati Sarkar, and Sunirmal Jana. 2017. “Hierarchically Structured Macro with Nested Mesoporous Zinc Indium Oxide Conducting Film.” ACS Applied Material Interfaces 9(5): 4420–4424.

Lotfi, Mohammad Hassan, Karthikeyan Sundaresan, Saswati Sarkar, Mohammad Ali Khojastepour. 2017. “Economics of Quality Sponsored Data in Non-Neutral Networks.” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 25(4).

Khouzani, M. H. R., Saswati Sarkar, and Eitan Altman. 2012. “Optimal Dissemination of Security Patches in Mobile Wireless Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 58(7): 4714-4732.

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