Scientific literacy, a leaky pipeline for underrepresented students, and technology accessibility are significant problems that can run together in the Midwest. Rural Nebraskans may find it difficult to see the benefits of scientific research, advanced education, and new technologies in their daily lives. The activities here are designed to complement each other in addressing these problems with the holistic goal of creating a diverse cyber-physical system (CPS) education pipeline in Nebraska that will enable the next generation of autonomous agricultural vehicles.

STEM Education Outreach

For the last 3 years, I have conducted a yearly evening lecture on UAS as part of a STEM-focused outreach program. The lecture is part of a Verizon sponsored Innovative Learning Program at Central Community College for middle school girls in rural Nebraska. The lecture includes hands-on demonstrations to help generate excitement for STEM topics. The program also includes a 3-week summer camp where girls conduct activities in coding, operation of robots, virtualization, and other exciting STEM topics. Starting next summer I will attend the summer camp devoting 1 day to coding for robotics, and 1 day of hands-on robotics competition. Middle School Girl STEM Camp

Research Experiences for Undergraduates

The NIMBUS lab is in its third year of a NSF-sponsored REU site: Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Unmanned Systems Foundations and Applications. During the summer we bring 8-12 undergraduate students from around the country to the NIMBUS lab for a 10-week research experience. Our REU has been extremely successful with >50% of participants over the past 3 years, and 5/6 currently recruited REU students being from underrepresented groups. Our REU always includes a field experiment component giving students the opportunity to see things work in the field. NIMBUS REU

Lifelong Learning

Interest and trust in technology can begin in the home and adults are likely to both be impacted by and have strong opinions on future intelligent technologies. I am reaching out to adults through the UNL Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) to conduct discussions on a broad range of topics in autonomy in vehicles over a 6-week period. The discussion format gives attendees the opportunity to relate topics back to their lives, ask questions based on their experience, and help inform researchers about the concerns of Nebraskans. This activity raises support for fundamental science and encourages discussions of these topics with family by demonstrating how national efforts to support scientific research directly benefit Nebraskans.

Professional Service

I seek to generate interdisciplinary discussion, papers, conference sessions, and journal articles that explore the interconnection between computing, aerospace, and control.

Committees

  • Intelligent Systems Technical Committee, AIAA, 2017–present
    • Chair, Conference Planning Committee (2020, 2021, 2022)
    • AIAA Autonomous Vehicle Task Force, 2020
  • IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Technology Conferences Editorial Board, (2020–present)
  • IEEE Technical Committee on Aerospace Controls, (2019–present)
  • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS)
    • Technical Program Committee (2017, 2018)
    • Co-chair, Competitions

Reviewer

  • Journal:
    • ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (2018)
    • AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (2014, 2015, 2020)
    • AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (2018, 2019)IEEE Access (2017)
    • IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (2018)
    • IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2016, 2017)
    • IMA Journal of Mathematical Control and Information (2019)
    • MDPI Sensors (2017)
    • MDPI Applied Sciences (2016)
    • Wiley Journal of Field Robotics (2018)
  • Conferences:
    • AIAA SciTech (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
    • AIAA SPACE Symposium (2018)
    • AIAA Infotech@Aerospace (2015)
    • IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) (2018)
    • IEEE American Control Conference (ACC) (2020)
    • IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA) (2018, 2020)
    • IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS) (2017, 2018)
    • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
    • IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (2016, 2017, 2020)
    • IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) (2019, 2020)
    • IFAC Cyber-Physical & Human Systems (2018)
    • Robotics Science and Systems (2020)
    • International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR) (2020)

Professional Organizations

  • IEEE Senior Member, since 2011
  • AIAA Senior Member, since 2007
  • ACM Member, 2015-2021
  • Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) Electrical Engineering Honor Society, since 2005

University Leadership

  • Chair, College of Engineering Robotics Minor Committee (2015-present)
  • Chair, ACM Programming Contest, (2016-2019)
  • Chair, Colloquium Committee, (2019-2020)
  • Chair, Undergraduate Recruitment Committee (2020-present)