January 27, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

January 27, 2020

Lijun Yu, research master student in Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University  produced a video for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s 9th Annual “Student Transportation Video Contest.” Yu won the post-secondary/college/graduate level in the Safety category of ARTBA’s 2019 Student Transportation Video Contest.  Watch the winning video here.

September 30, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

In June, the Mobility21 UTC welcomed Tessa Guengerich as part of the CMU Robotics Institute Summer Scholars (RISS) program. By the end of August, she was offered a job as a Robotics Engineer and began working for Carnegie Mellon University at the National Robotics Engineering Center.

During the spring, Tessa was an undergraduate student at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.  She graduated with her bachelor’s in chemical engineering in May and arrived in Pittsburgh for the summer program hoping to learn more about machine learning, programming and the implementation of robots outside of academia. Tessa was a part of the 2018 RISS cohort and said she was excited to return to Pittsburgh. She was eager to learn more about things she wasn’t exposed to before (computational statistics and machine learning) and was also excited to be surrounded by other students from around the world.

Carnegie Mellon’s RISS Program is an eleven-week summer (June 1 to mid-August) undergraduate research program that immerses a diverse cohort of scholars in cutting-edge robotics projects that drive innovation and have real-world impact. Launched in 2006, RISS is among the best and most comprehensive robotics research programs for undergraduates in the world.

As she explains, “On the Mat Sinking project with RISS mentor Isaac Isukapati, Project Scientist, at CMU’s NREC: National Robotics Engineering Center, I’m learning a lot about computational statistics and algorithms, and I’m coding in C++ for the first time. I’ve faced a bit of a learning curve, but it’s a challenge I’ve been able to face thus far. The overall project is to write a scheduling program for robotic arms performing specific tasks — for example, given X robotic arms and Y objects, what’s the best course of action for the robotic arms to move those objects safely and efficiently? My contribution to the project is to write a statistical simulator to test the performance of the scheduler with a specific set of parameters, to see where the scheduler performs well and where it fails.”

By the end of the summer RISS experience, she had been encouraged to apply for a job at the National Robotics Engineering Center. She was hired on as a full-time Robotics Engineer and is now continuing her work on the Mat Sinking Project.

Before beginning her summer RISS program Tessa was unsure what her next steps would be. She says she is thrilled to be in Pittsburgh. She loves the people in Pittsburgh, noting everyone is super friendly. Tessa said everyone at her new job has been supportive and helping her get acclimated.

April 8, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 8, 2019

CMU’s Traffic21 and Robotics Institute Summer Scholars Program have partnered to provide talented undergraduate students mentored robotics research experiences with top scientists creating innovative solutions for transportation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Stephanie Milani, the recipient of the 2017 Women in Transportation Award funded by Traffic21, is joining the CMU Machine Learning Ph.D. program in fall 2019.

The Traffic21 scholarship enabled Stephanie to learn about computer vision and deep learning while working with Dr. Christoph Mertz. Stephanie explained how important this was in her trajectory and growth, “Before RISS, I was unfamiliar with robotics research. Through the various programs and events, RISS provides a great, overarching view of the interdisciplinary nature of robotics research, but simultaneously allows scholars to dive deeply into an area through their summer research.”

Investing in early research experiences creates an enormous impact and opportunity for new solutions and approaches that will make our communities smarter and more livable.

Congratulations Stephanie!

April 3, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 3, 2019

The 2019 Eno Future Leaders Development Conference will be held in Washington D.C. from June 2-June 6, 2019 this year – and Mobility21 UTC’s Women in Transportation Fellow, Bonnie Fan, will be at the event at the winner of the CUTC’s reserved seat.

January 23, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

January 12, 2019

Carnegie Mellon University student Dhruv Mahajan, participated in the 2019 Annual Transportation Camp, part of the TRB Annual Conference. Dhruv reviews his experience as a  “great opportunity to get an informal discussion started on issues related to transportation that you care about. It is very loosely structured and serves as a very good contrast from TRB that immediately follows it. This makes the  Transportation Camp, a very unique experience. I had a great time meeting people at Transportation Camp and listening to some really interesting ideas.”