Austin Robot Technology Team Profile

Eric Anderson

System Adminstration, Networking, Programming, Neural Nets

Eric works at Centaur Technology in Austin as a Sr. Systems Administrator. He is interested in robotics, AI, and neural networks. Eric has very extensive experience administering Unix/Linux systems and at one point he had a T1 coming into his house! Eric's role includes system administration, system architecture and programming.

Matt Bennett

Vision System, Radar / Sonar, Electrical Systems

Matt received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1991 from the University of Maryland. After UMD, he went to work for the Army Research Lab, performing research and development in the field of Ultra Wide Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, ultimately mounting the radar on a 150' boom lift. While working at ARL he earned his Master's Degree from Johns Hopkins University. In 1998, he moved to Austin and began working at the University of Texas's Applied Research Lab. At ARLUT, he was involved in the development of autonomous oceangoing robotic buoys used for scoring ballistic missile tests. After ARLUT, he worked with Andrew Corporation, designing cellular accessories. Currently, he works for Dell, designing and testing LAN on motherboard interfaces.

Matt is an automotive and motorcycle enthusiast. On the road, sometimes he drives a 200 hp supercharged Miata, other times, sportbikes. Off the road, he enjoys aggressive trail riding.

Tobias Berthold

Vehicle Control, Navigation

Tobias Berthold is a Masters student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin, with plans to continue for a Ph.D. He works with the Command and Data Handling System team, developing onboard software for the FASTRAC satellites. His interests include spacecraft trajectory optimization, autonomous space missions, human-machine interfaces, and advanced propulsion. He is also the cofounder of the software library for space flight, located at http://jat.sourceforge.net.

Kevin Blanchard

Vision System & Navigation

Over 10 years of experience in Information Technology with 7 years of specialty in computer security, engineering and integration.

Kevin is a recent Austin transplant from Washington, DC. He has worked with many large government agencies as a security engineer, engineering lead and project manager, and having an active role in the design, management and implementation of complex systems for the DoD. Kevin has been involved in designing, trouble shooting and running QA for multiple military grade surveillance and reconnaissance robots and served as an engineering mentor for his local US FIRST high school robotics team.

Kevin's first published recognition for his work was in July 1993 (at the age of 16) in Windows User Magazine for a program named Download Buddy.

In his free time, Kevin's hobbies include playing with his dogs, robotics, bioinformatics and learning the viola.

Derek Bridges

Analog and Power Electronics

Over 20 years experience doing hardware design and manufacturing. MSEE and BSEE degrees from The University of Texas at Austin.

Derek studied electrical engineering at UT Austin back in the days when RTL meant resistor-transistor logic. After working for two companies in Austin, Derek went to Silicon Valley where he worked for Westinghouse, Boeing Aerospace/NASA, and Telco Systems. Derek came back to Austin in 1994 and has since worked for Ten X Technologies, Venable Industries, Trymer Company and Cirrus Logic.

Interests include simulation and construction of analog and power electronics and mechanical design.

Jonathan Brogdon

Control Theory, Systems Programming

Jon has over 12 years of experience in embedded systems programming for medical devices and communications systems. Jon is a Senior Software Engineer at Cisco Systems in Austin working on Ethernet switches for service provider applications. This is Jon's second time around at Cisco, having worked there previously in a group that developed DSL equipment. In between his first and second stints at Cisco, Jon worked at a startup and at Agere Systems on network processors. Prior to working at Cisco, Jon developed control software for DSL transceivers at Motorola in Austin. After graduating in 1992 with a BSEE from the University of Houston, Jon worked as a Software Engineer at Intermedics in Angleton, Texas, where he developed software for an implantable pacemaker programmer. Jon also taught C/C++ and electronics at the junior college level during this time. While in college, he also worked as a programmer in the Computational Neuroscience Department at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, writing software to collect/filter sample data from neural networks.

Jon married his college sweetheart, and has 3 wonderful children. Interests include: communication systems, information theory, robotics, reading (histories, biographies, and contemporary fiction), and sports. Jon is a huge baseball fan.

Dr. John Bunda

Programmer & Systems Integration

Over 25 years of software and hardware design experience, from microprocessor architecture to distributed near-real-time software systems software.

John began his technology career in 1977 in software, working in systems design, implementation, and project management for Unisys and IBM. He later returned to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin (1993). He has since done microprocessor architecture and performance analysis at Somerset, the IBM/Motorola/Apple joint venture, at IBM Austin, and at Centaur Technology. He has also served as CTO of Protrader Technologies, LP., a direct-access securities brokerage, designing and implementing real-time market data and trading systems. Protrader was sold to Instinet Group in 2001. He then helped start and served as CIO of Transcend Capital, LP, and has held advisory positions for several local start-ups, and has owned and run several businesses. John is currently back at Centaur Technology writing floating point microcode for a next-generation VIA microprocessor.

He's also a automotive technology enthusiast, maintaining and driving his 1990 BMW M3.

Tom Crispin

Programmer & Systems Integration

Over thirty years experience designing and building a wide range of quality software from low-level device drivers to application suites to scientific simulations and games. Specializes in tight, fast assembly code. Skilled in debugging and optimizing unfamiliar programs. Enjoys working on hard problems.

Glenn R. Currie

Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Integration

Glenn is a founding member and on the board of directors for The Robot Group Inc. in Austin, Texas, www.robotgroup.net. When in this capacity, he tries to keep everyone out of trouble. Sometimes he is successful :-)

The Robot Group projects have been chronicled in Newsweek, and other print media. The group has also been featured on ABC's "Good Morning America", The Discovery Channel's series "Invention" as well as a Discovery Channel special "Legacy of Leonardo".

Glenn has a degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked for the McDonald Observatory and was on the team that developed the Guide Star Selection System for the Hubble Space Telescope. Glenn also did image processing in support of the Outer Planet Satellite project (Pioneer and Voyager probes). Glenn worked for Tandem computers for 8 years and worked on projects including developing diagnostics for the first fault tolerant Unix computer. Later Glenn was the team lead in developing the remote diagnostic system for the first fault tolerant computer running the Japanese "CTRON" operating system for NTT, the phone company of Japan.

Glenn works at North Shore Circuit Design in Austin where he helps design a wide variety of electronic devices including wireless telemetry, automated livestock inoculation, and microprocessor demo boards. Glenn works with a variety of operating systems, and is usually asked to help with the lower level software tasks on projects, including device drivers and embedded code. North Shore does many types of new product prototypes and Glenn gets to have fun welding, woodworking and machining of plastics to help bring these creations to life.

Glenn has been interested in robots most of his life and has a long term project with The Robot Group referred to as The Robot Brain. Glenn is also a very active amateur radio operator, call KD5MFW, and works with emergency communications in the Austin area.

Robert Dunlap

Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Control & Integration

Robert graduated in 1991 from Cornell University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. From 1991 to 1998 he worked as a process engineer and control engineer for chemical plants, leading teams in international locations such as China and Saudi Arabia. From 1998 to 2002 he was employed by Emerson as a principal engineer and consultant in the hydrocarbon and life sciences industries. During the 1990's he invested in and operated a vending machine company and a restaurant. A 2004 MBA graduate of the University of Texas McCombs School, Robert concentrated in finance and entrepreneurship, and led an academy teaching innovation to MBA students. His teams have placed in the Idea-to-Product competition and in international design innovation competitions. In 2004 he started Core/Global Consulting, LLC, a technical business research firm, and has consulted on financial, innovation, media, and technical issues. Robert has published in and been quoted in Control Engineering, Hydrocarbon Processing, and Plant Services. He has worked professionally in 11 countries and has visited more than 30.

Patrick Dyson

System software, hardware integration, and project management

Patrick received a degree in Mathematical Science from Rice University in 1988. He spent five years at Apple Computer writing system and network software including real time control software for the first industry trackpad. He managed a software team at Splash technology that built communication and control software for high speed printers. Currently at Sun Microsystems managing a software development team creating Identity Management products.

Mark Ebersole

Vehicle Control, Sensors & Navigation

Over 25 years experience in real time operating systems (RTOS), microkernel, and embedded operating systems design

Mark has 15 years of experience with simulation systems for commercial and military fixed wing and commercial rotary wing aircraft, navigation and tactics systems, air traffic simulation, flight management computers, aircraft flight controls, hydraulic systems, power distribution, and servo mechanical systems.

Mark has spent another 12 years in embedded systems programming and microprocessor systems design.

In addition, Mark has a background in project management, budget and planning.

Christopher Hopeman

System Integrator / GPS Specialist

Yet another Engineer from Rice (BSEE, 2000, Lovett), Christopher Hopeman spent three years at Motorola as a systems engineer with their Driver Information Systems group and later with their Digital, Audio, Radio, Telematics group. While there he was the product engineer responsible for the high-level hardware design and integration of a 32-bit automotive development computer (www.mobilegt.com).

Chris recently received his Master of Engineering degree from M.I.T., where he specialized in Logistics. His thesis dealt with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and sensors in the semiconductor industry.

As a third generation automotive engineer, Chris has a well-founded interest in racing. While an intern in the Motor City, he ran several SCCA rallies, sitting in both the driver and navigator seats. And more recently, Chris nearly totaled his private vehicle at the Texas World Speedway.

Dan Horowitz

Technical Writer

Dan has a degree in Mass Communications / Journalism from Texas State University-San Marcos (Southwest Texas).

Dan is currently a technical writer / editor / analyst for Dell where he has worked for 7 years. During his career at Dell Dan has also managed a team of technical writers, and worked in technical support and customer escalations.

Before starting work at Dell Dan was a writer, copyeditor, and editor for a few different small publications, did some freelance feature and technical writing, spent a year at UT in the Masters program in Communications, and was also an office manager for a small technology startup.

Dan is an avid runner and cyclist and recently came very close to qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

Rex Jackson

Electromechanical Design, CAD, Vehicle Integration

10 years experience as a machinist in the oil field industry. 20 years experience with The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics.

At the Center for Electromechanics Rex spent the initial 10 years fabricating and assembling high power kinetic energy weapon systems. More recently, Rex has been designing and building 3D solid models of advanced energy storage devices for hybrid electric vehicles and active suspension systems for a wide variety of military vehicles.

Eric Lundquist

Software Development, Vehicle Integration

Eric Lundquist is the past President of the The Robot Group of Austin. He served as President (2004, 2003, 2002), Vice President (2000), and as a Board member (2001). In his tenure with the group, he has organized numerous public appearances including: the South By SouthWest Interactive Conference and the Insomniac with Dave Attell television show on Comedy Central. In addition, he has created robotic props used in motion pictures that were shot in Austin such as Spy Kids and even created an animatronic head for the local independent film Armadillo News. He has since created numerous other robots and enjoys helping others in getting their creations to work.

Eric has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Texas Pan American and a certificate from the University of Dallas in Telecommunications Management that included 15 graduate course hours. An Austin resident for over 10 years, Eric works for a large telecommunications firm. He has over 23 years of experience in software development ranging from: assembly language operating system device drivers, to business applications in COBOL and RPG II, to SQL databases and Object Oriented Java and C++ applications. Building robots is a way for Eric to "get his hands dirty" with real mechanical equipment and leverage his software experience at the same time.

Eric is "Married with Children" with 4 children ranging in ages from 23 to 10. He also has 2 dogs and 3 cats. When not going quietly insane, Eric enjoys reading science fiction and listening to heavy metal rock.

Arturo Martin-de-Nicolas

Vision System & Navigation

Over 27 years experience in microprocessor high performance programming.

Art has been programming microprocessors since 1979 when he built a Heathkit amateur radio station in Costa Rica (TI2AOK).  With help from a friend he connected it to an Apple II computer and programmed the 6502 microprocessor to transmit and receive Morse Code.

Art joined IBM in 1983 with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Rice University. At the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center he developed an emulator of the IBM PC using dynamic translation and then led the team in Austin that turned it into a product for IBM workstations. Art defined PowerPC instructions to improve the performance of X86 emulation.

Art has 10 years experience writing x86 micro-code for the VIA family of microprocessors. Twelve of Art's inventions have been granted US patents.

Jorge Martin-de-Nicolas

Team Leader -- Vision System & Navigation

Over 20 years experience in engineering and computer science.

Jorge graduated from Rice University with a Masters in Computer Science and a Masters in Civil Engineering. After graduation he worked in California for an engineering company in San Francisco in many diverse projects. Some projects were done for the David Taylor Research Center (a research branch of the US Navy) and involved a motion simulator predicting the motion of an underwater structure at varying ocean depths and surface wave conditions, and a simulator predicting tension in a fiber optic cable during deployment given varying ocean depth and deployment vessel speed. Another project done for the California Department of Transportation consisted in the nonlinear analysis of highway superstructures which survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Later projects in Jorge's career took him to Silicon Valley where he concentrated on database applications and software development on multi-threaded distributed systems. Jorge currently works at Voxpath Networks in Austin developing next-generation Voice Over IP telephony applications.

In his spare time, Jorge likes to tinker with his cars (which is probably part of the reason why they always sound like they are in need of a good tune-up). When Jorge recently moved from California to Texas he sadly parted with his trusty (and rusty) old friend: his 1977 Toyota Corolla which took him and his brothers through college. Jorge can now be found tinkering with his other twenty-something-year-old car: his 1984 318i (but John's 1990 M3 runs a lot better! :-)

Juan Martin-de-Nicolas

Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Integration

Over 20 years experience working with machinery and mechanical systems.

Juan graduated Magna Cum Laude from ASU in Business Administration with a concentration in Computer Information Systems and Accounting.  Juan worked in the textile machinery industry, buying and selling equipment all over the world.  In the 90's Juan and his brother Jorge created an interactive online database for machinery. Juan's travels have taken him to China, Australia, Europe and South America.

Donald W. McCauley

Vision System & Logic design

Over 20 years experience designing microprocessors and computer systems with IBM and Intel.

Don received a BSEE degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976. Completed one year of graduate study prior to starting work with IBM in upstate New York in 1977. Moved to Austin, Texas in 1993. Joined Intel in 1999.

Don has 11 patents issued or pending. Currently a researcher at Intel's Microprocessor Technology Lab in Austin, Texas.

Interests include bicycling an average of 1000 miles a year.

Rich McGill

Mechanical Systems & Vehicle Control

9 years in Industrial Manufacturing Engineering & Operations & 8 years in Computer Science

At The University of Akron (AACSB Accredited), he earned a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Management of Information Systems, a minor in Business Management Technology, and a Certificate in Supervision & Management. Certified by the Microsoft Corporation as an expert developer (MCSD) and systems engineer (MCSE) in Microsoft technologies. Member of Golden Key National Honor Society and Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.

During his Industrial Manufacturing career, Rich worked in supporting 10 medium to large-sized production facilities. He has experience in operating and repairing heavy machinery and engineering and implementing designs and solutions to solve automation problems, to improve efficiency, and to increase machine capacities. Eventually he moved into a position of managing a team of engineers and mechanics for various special projects.

As a software engineer, he excels in analyzing systems to determine problem areas, developing, managing, and implementing specific software solutions. In his current position he designs, develops, and supports a wide-range of enterprise applications. In his spare time he likes to read a lot to keep up-to-date on some of the latest technologies and science discoveries. Popular Science is one of his favorite magazines.

Dan Miner

Control Systems Design

Dan Miner has a B.S. degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is currently employed at Centaur Technology where he does architecture and microcode design for their x86 processor chips. Before that, he worked at Digital Equipment Corp. doing architecture and microcode work in the VAX CPU group and the workstation graphics board groups. During his career, all projects he has worked on have shipped for revenue.

From High School to the present, Dan has always been interested in electronics and software projects as a hobby outside the workplace. He also has a lathe and milling machine in his garage and spends some time machining metal parts for various projects. Hobby robotics is just one of the areas that his interests and experience have been useful. Dan prides himself in being a bit of Jack-of-all-trades (but master of none). This is especially useful in robotics which is a complex blend of mechanical, electrical and software systems.

Mark Moldenhauer

Venture Capital

Mark Moldenhauer is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a Masters in Accounting. He actively participates in the financial matters relating to the team and its DARPA entry.

Mr. Moldenhauer is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the merger and acquisition business. During that period of time he successfully concluded over 25 business combinations and served on the Board of Directors of more than 20 public companies. He is presently retired but continues to create and develop new business endeavors.

Stephen Polkowski

Embedded Real Time Kernel and Systems Integration

Over 14 years experience in microprocessor programming and verification.

Stephen joined IBM in 1991 with a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He first developed software to verify the integrity of SCSI devices on Unix platforms. Later, he joined a team of programmers that developed an IBM PC emulator for IBM workstations. This team also went on to develop a hybrid PC emulator that used hardware acceleration on the PowerPC.

Stephen currently works at Centaur Technology where he is responsible for verifying the VIA family of x86 microprocessors. He has over eight years of programming experience in C and assembly language on Windows and Unix platforms. His responsibilities include BIOS programming, device driver development, and lab debugging. In 1998, Stephen completed his Masters of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas.

Cody Powell

3-D Graphics, Vision System

Cody graduated from Trinity University with a degree in Economics and Computer Science. Since then, he has worked for American Innovations, an Austin-based software company specializing in applications for the oil and gas industry. He currently leads the Graphics and UI team for one of AI's product families. He is also presently enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin's math department as a non-degree seeking student. His interests include the stock market, racquetball, and his ongoing quest to create the world's finest peanut butter sandwich.

Jens Roever

Vision System, Video Standards, DSP Design

Jens lives in California and works for Philips in a group that does "multimedia" chips such as the Nexperia PNX1500 which is a video DSP "and-then-some" chip. Several years back Jens built the Video Input Processor (VIP) that is still being used in pretty much all Philips TriMedia based video boards, so he is quite familiar with different video standards.

WEBMASTER NOTE: Jens made the big mistake of sending me a sample screenshot from his webcamera, showing the result of applying a Laplace edge detection algorithm as he waved into the camera :-) Now I can blackmail him into sending me a real picture for our website. Jens never indented for me to use his webcam shot in such a nefarious way, but I couldn't resist ;-)

Alok Vaid

Vehicle Control, Sensors, Sonar

Alok is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin with specialization in Controls and Dynamics. He received his Bachelor's Degree in Manufacturing & Automation Engineering from Delhi Institute Of Technology, India.

In India, he worked on a project with Suzuki for two years, which was aimed to develop an anti-collision device for automotive systems. This system titled "Safe Cruising System" ensures automatic, intelligent and adaptive control of the vehicle by automatic control of brakes and throttle. Project details can be seen on Alok's research website at UT. Alok's research group have filed for its patent. An Indian newspaper, Deccan Herald, applauded their work on an article published September 30, 2003.

In addition to his interest in vehicle controls, Alok also has proclivity for programming. He is working on deploying a distributed scientific application (EON) over the Internet using standard client-server model based on TCP/IP protocols at UT Austin (http://eon.cm.utexas.edu). His work consists of writing client sever code, writing scripts for server, making dynamic webpages which interact with the database system, and finally maintaining the database system.

Alok tries to keep himself updated with latest research in automotive systems like By-Wire technologies and Intelligent Transportation System. He is also a great Robotics enthusiast with a dream of making a Humanoid robot some day!!!

Tony Welch

Webmaster

Tony (aka Frosty) is now a web program manager, but past stints include web designer, art director, LAN manager, InfoSys director, CAD operator and a cook.

WEBMASTER NOTE: Tony is being characteristically modest! He is also a great soccer player, both as a goal keeper and as a field player :-) Oh... and by the way... I guess I am not Webmaster anymore :-) I guess technically now I am the Immediate-Past-Webmaster.

Alan Zubatch

Control Systems Design, DSP Design

Alan received his BSEE from The University of Texas at Austin in December 2003. He got his basic introduction to electronics from the Navy which also showed him around the Asian Pacific Rim. After he got out of the Navy, Alan took 3 months to drive around the country and then worked for a year in Dallas before entering UT.

Alan has worked at the UT Applied Research Laboratories for five years doing hardware design for military communication systems. He is currently working on DSP based radio design and other embedded projects.

Alan's other interests include getting his project car back together (again), rock climbing, and he is considering doing a track day on his motorcycle.

Dr. Anthony R. Cassandra

Advisor, System Architecture Lead

Tony received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University working on planning, decision making and machine learning systems. He has applied some of this research to robot navigation problems and has been a participant in AAAI robot competitions. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a machinist as well as a non-destructive testing inspector, gathering useful practical experiences in design, manufacturing, metallurgy and quality control.

After graduating, he worked in doing research and development at MCC where he worked on distributed agent systems, complex event detection and semantic brokering. Tony moved on to work for a few early-stage start-ups where he did everything from system administration, system design, programming, testing, managing software teams, conducting market analysis, as well as being the Director of Engineering (effectively acting as the CTO).

He has since been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at St. Edward's University in Austin, TX, where he played a major role in designing and implementing the network and computing infrastructure for a new Computer Science Laboratory.

More recently, he has worked as a consultant to Telcordia Technologies for a DARPA funded research project that is attempting to improve the robustness to failure of a distributed military logistics system. He presently is a Research Fellow in the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Austin where he is using his expertise in optimal decision making to help understand human spatial navigation.

Dr. Derek C. Dyson

Advisor

Dr. Derek Dyson is a Professor Emeritus in Chemical Engineering from Rice University. He obtained his B.S. in 1955 from the University of Cambridge and his Ph.D. in 1966 from the University of London. Dr. Dyson's research interests include interfacial phenomena and enhanced oil recovery.

Dr. Benjamin Kuipers

Advisor

Dr. Benjamin Kuipers holds an endowed Professorship in Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He investigates the representation of commonsense and expert knowledge, with particular emphasis on the effective use of incomplete knowledge. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College, and his Ph.D. from MIT. He has held research or faculty appointments at MIT, Tufts University, and the University of Texas. His research accomplishments include developing the TOUR model of spatial knowledge in the cognitive map, the QSIM algorithm for qualitative simulation, the Algernon system for knowledge representation, and the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy model of knowledge for robot exploration and mapping. He has served as Department Chairman, and is a Fellow of AAAI and IEEE.

Jack O'Quin

Advisor, Operating Systems and Realtime Processing

Jack O'Quin has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and twenty years experience doing Operating System software development. Currently playing jazz bass and developing realtime audio software for Linux, Mac OS X and BSD Unix systems.

Dr. Thomas W. Rioux

Advisor

Dr. Tom Rioux received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Transportation Engr.) from the University of Texas at Austin where he began developing computer software in 1967 as an undergraduate student. Dr. Rioux has practiced as a professional engineer and conducted research in transportation engineering and traffic operations for some 27 years. Dr. Rioux worked with KLD Associates, Inc., of Huntington Station, New York, to implement the intersection conflict checking logic and the lane change logic from the Texas Model for Intersection Traffic in the TRAF-NETSIM network traffic simulation model for the Federal Highway Administration. Dr. Rioux was the leader of the team that developed the Interactive Graphics Intersection Design System for the Texas Department of Transportation. He has been affiliated with the Center for Transportation Research from 1970 until 1976 and since 1988. He has been principal investigator for several TxDOT and TNRCC projects and served as research staff for numerous other TxDOT projects. Dr. Rioux teaches a graduate course for civil and architectural engineering students on Computer Methods in Civil Engineering, and he teaches the computer lab portions of roadway design and airport design classes.

Dr. Brian Stankiewicz

Advisor

Dr. Brian Stankiewicz, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Perceptual Systems at the University of Texas, studies spatial navigation and object recognition. Dr. Stankiewicz's laboratory is interested in understanding human cognition using both behavioral and computational modeling. More specifically, his research focuses on how people recognize objects (object recognition) and how people perceive and navigate through three-dimensional spaces (spatial navigation). His research uses virtual reality environments to help pinpoint the information and process needed to navigate through large-scale spaces such as a building or city.

Dr. Peter Stone

Advisor

Dr. Peter Stone is a computer scientist with research specialization in artificial intelligence. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and before joining The University of Texas at Austin he was a Senior Researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Principles Research Department at AT&T; Labs Research. His long-term research goal is to create complete, robust, autonomous agents that can learn to interact with other intelligent agents in a wide range of complex, dynamic environments. Dr. Stone's contributions are mainly in the areas of machine learning, autonomous agents and multiagent systems, robotics, and e-commerce. Past application domains have included robot soccer, autonomous bidding agents, intelligent traffic management, and social agents.

Thomas M. Taylor

Advisor

Over the last twenty years, from filing his first patent at the age of seventeen, Tom Taylor has generated dozens of commercially successful technological innovations and significantly affected the course of digital entertainment, PC technology and the Internet. Tom is currently CEO of Crossflux Inc.  Most recently, Tom was founder and CEO of Workfire Networks Inc., which developed the world's foremost standalone server-side technology for accelerating Web content. Workfire was acquired by Packeteer (NASDAQ: PKTR) in a $100 million transaction. Previously, Tom was founder & CEO of MSound International, a venture that developed advanced digital sound technology for PCs. MSound was acquired by PMC-Sierra (NASDAQ: PMCS). Tom was also CTO of the team that built the world's first full Java application for the PC, which was also the first -- and most commercially successful -- Web acceleration software program for PCs. In addition, he has acted as special technical advisor in numerous technology developments, such as high-definition television (HDTV), digital video editing systems, and digital signal processing subsystems.

Dr. Preston S. Wilson

Advisor

Dr. Wilson is a faculty member of the Acoustics and Dynamic Systems & Control programs of the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin. He joined the College of Engineering faculty in August of 2003 after serving as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Boston University, where he studied sound propagation and scattering in bubbly liquids, and the acoustics of water-saturated marine sediments. Previous experience includes 3 years as a research engineer at Applied Research Laboratories, The University of Texas. Selected research areas were: The acoustics of marine mammal sonar, development of a seismoacoustic mine detection sonar, seismoacoustic vehicle detection sensors and the Combustive Sound Source (a safe and inexpensive alternative to explosive sound sources for use in underwater acoustics experiments). In 2004 Dr. Wilson received a $300,000 Office of Naval Research Entry-Level Faculty Award in Ocean Acoustics for his Project Investigation of the Acoustics of Marine Sediments Using an Impedance Tube.

Patrick Doane

3D Graphics

Patrick Doane has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and is the Vice President of XL Games America, which is currently developing an online racing simulation. He has worked in the game industry for over 5 years with a focus on graphics and network programming. Patrick has also worked for 3 years in the semiconductor industry, developing simulation and verification tools.

Hillary A. Ryan

Thunderhill Ranch President

Mr. Ryan has offered Thunderhill Ranch as a testing ground for Austin Robot Technology's vehicle. Thunderhill Ranch is near Llano, 60 miles west of Austin and has 1,000 acres of varying terrain in the Texas Hill Country.

Hugo J. Silva

Documentary Video Production

Over 20 years experience in film / video production, duplication and mechanics.

Hugo has been a member of the St. Theresa's Catholic Church Television crew for the past 17 years, performing as a camera operator, producer and director of the mass. He has shown exemplary skills in directing several cameras, audio technicians and graphics to produce the weekly mass which is broadcast every Sunday on Austin's Local Access Channel.

Hugo found his call to video production while filming football games in high school. He has produced several documentary style videos for sporting events, weddings and special events in past 20 years. He received an Associate Degree from Austin Community College in Radio, Television & Film in the Fall of 1999. He was a member of the Austin Community Television (ACTV) group from 1994 to 2000.

Hugo has been working in the computer software industry for the past 5 years for EPSIIA, an Austin company specializing in secure, high-volume document archival and retrieval. Hugo's enthusiasm for the project and the attention to detail he exemplifies with his video productions will prove him to be a valued member of the team.

Lights... Camera... Action!!

Monte G. Williams

Public Relations

Monte Williams is an Austin, Texas-based consultant specializing in all forms of corporate communications. Mr. Williams has consulted on crisis management and media strategy for a number of clients in the public and private sectors in both the U.S. and overseas. He has extensive experience setting up strategic media plans and corporate press operations, and has consulted for companies operating under tight regulatory constraints including public investment pools, electric utilities, state-run lotteries, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Williams' political/media experience includes stints as campaign press secretary and speechwriter for Texas Gov. Ann Richards, Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, U.S. Sen. Bob Krueger and U.S. Rep. J.J. Pickle. Before 1983, Williams was a reporter for KNOW-AM, a Peabody-Award winning radio news station in Austin.

Additionally, Mr. Williams was an Executive Story Editor for Steven Spielberg's ABC drama HIGH INCIDENT, and has written for ABC's comedy SPIN CITY and USA Network's drama COVER ME as well as pilots for NBC and CBS.

Williams is a member of the Writers' Guild of America, and is represented in Hollywood by the Endeavor Talent Agency. Mr. Williams is a graduate of DePauw University and is married with three sons, Max, Evan and Jake.