February19
Candidate: Christoforos Mavrogiannis
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Ross Knepper (chair), Kilian Weinberger, Shimon Edelman, Guy Hoffman, Anca Dragan
Time and Place: Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, 2:00 p.m., 122 Gates Hall
Dissertation Title: Motion Planning for Socially Competent Robot Navigation
December3
Candidate: Ravi Patel
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Olivier Desjardins (chair), Peter Diamessis, Madhi Esmaily (proxy for Michel Louge)
Time and Place: Monday, Nov. 26, 2018, 2:00 p.m., 106 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Mesoscale Simulation and Analysis of Particle-Laden Flows
November27
Candidate: Daniel Garrett
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Dmitry Savransky (chair), Mason Peck, Richard Rand
Time and Place: Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, 1:00 p.m., 331 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Exoplanet Direct Imaging Detection Metrics and Exoplanet Populations
November20
Candidate: Ilse Van Meerbeek
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Robert Shepherd (chair), Hadas Kress-Gazit, Guy Hoffman, Meredith Silberstein
Time and Place: Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, 2:00 p.m., 106 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Elastomeric Foam Systems for Novel Mechanical Properties and for Soft Robot Proprioception
November2
Candidate: Sheng Wang
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Olivier Desjardins (chair), Paul Steen, David Bindel
Time and Place: Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, 10:30 a.m., 106 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Towards Large-Scale Simulations of Two-Phase Flows with Moving Contact Lines
October8
Candidate: Jordan Chipka
Candidate’s Field: Aerospace Engineering
Committee: Mark Campbell (chair), Hadas Kress-Gazit, Bart Selman
Time and Place: Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, 2:00 p.m., 106 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Estimation and Navigation Methods with Limited
Information for Autonomous Urban Driving
August7
Candidate: Alexander Ivanov
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Mark Campbell (chair), Alexander Vladimirsky, Silvia Ferrari, Hadas Kress-Gazit
Time and Place: Tuesday, July 31, 2018, 10:00 a.m., 531 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Guaranteed Robotic Planning and Exploration in Unknown Environments
July17
Candidate: Robert Carson
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Paul Dawson (chair), Matthew Miller, Derek Warner
Time and Place: Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:00 a.m., 106 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Characterization of Deformation Heterogeneity during Cyclic Loading of Polycrystalline Materials using Crystal Plasticity
June25
Candidate: Jonathan Daudelin
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Mark Campbell (chair), Hadas Kress-Gazit, Silvia Ferrari
Time and Place: Monday, June 18, 2018, 12:30 p.m., 431 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Active Perception and Planning for Modular Self-Reconfigurable Robots
June15
Candidate: Joyce Fang
Candidate’s Field: Mechanical Engineering
Committee: Dmitry Savransky (chair), Hadas Kress-Gazit, James Lloyd
Time and Place: Friday, June 8, 2018, 10:00 a.m., 431 Upson Hall
Dissertation Title: Online Model-based Estimation for Automated Optical System Alignment and Phase Retrieval Algorithm