Work with thought leaders and academic experts in Robotics

Christos A. Makridis holds academic appointments at Columbia Business School, Stanford University, Baylor University, University of Nicosia, and Arizona State University. He is also an adjunct scholar at the Manhattan Institute, senior adviser at Gallup, and senior adviser at the National AI Institute in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Christos is the CEO/co-founder of [Dainamic](https://www.dainamic.ai/), a technology startup working to democratize the use and application of data science and AI techniques for small and mid sized organizations, and CTO/co-founder of [Living Opera](https://www.livingopera.org/), a web3 startup working to bridge classical music and blockchain technologies. Christos previously served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers managing the cybersecurity, technology, and space activities, as a Non-resident Fellow at the Cyber Security Project in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, as a Digital Fellow at the Initiative at the Digital Economy in the MIT Sloan School of Management, a a Non-resident Research Scientist at Datacamp, and as a Visiting Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Christos’ primary academic research focuses on labor economics, the digital economy, and personal finance and well-being. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed research papers in academic journals and over 170 news articles in the press. Christos earned a Bachelor’s in Economics and Minor in Mathematics at Arizona State University, as well a dual Masters and PhDs in Economics and Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University.

Dr. Andrew Raij, Ph.D. is a principal researcher at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, where he leads research on human-centered computing and virtual / augmented / mixed reality. For over 20 years, Dr. Raij has been helping companies unlock the transformative power of immersive technologies through **rigorous user research, strategic guidance, and creative problem-solving**. With a deep understanding of human behavior in immersive environments, he bridges the gap between cutting-edge technology and real-world needs. His career began in academia, where he was an Assistant Professor and Director of the Powerful Interactive Experiences (PIE) Lab at the University of South Florida. Later, he joined Universal Creative, where he applied his expertise to the challenge of using immersive, wearable technologies in the theme park environment. At Draper Labs, his research focuses on applying immersive technologies to training and situational awareness. Dr. Raij earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. Prior to this, he completed his M.S. in Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003 and his B.S. in Computer Science at Northwestern University in 2001.

Serena Booth is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in robotics from MIT in 2024 and her BS in computer science from Harvard University in 2016. Her research focuses on developing new methods for robotic control and learning.

Team lead in machine learning, neuroscience. <br> I have captured and executed projects for DARPA, NASA, and several international clients (GM, Toyota, Fujitsu). \* 12 projects transitioned--$10M revenue captured (31+ publications, 32+ patents) \* 9 awards including those from NASA, GM, and HRL Laboratories \* I also have startup, contracting and consulting experience \* US citizen (authorized to work) <br> Last updated: Aug 30, 2023

Hello, my name is Aidan Scannell and I am a postdoctoral researcher with interests at the intersection of machine learning, sequential decision making and robotics. My research aims at enabling autonomous agents to learn behaviours, such that they can learn to solve any task. I am particularly interested in controlling agents with natural language instructions and the challenges associated with developing a robotic foundation model which can generalise across tasks, objects and embodiments. I am a [Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence](https://fcai.fi/) postdoctoral researcher at [Aalto University](https://www.aalto.fi/en) in Joni Pajarinen’s [Robot Learning Lab](https://rl.aalto.fi/) and Arno Solin’s [Machine Learning Research Group](https://users.aalto.fi/~asolin/group/). I obtained my PhD from the [University of Bristol](https://www.bristol.ac.uk/) under the supervision of Arthur Richards and Carl Henrik Ek. During my PhD I developed methods for controlling quadcopters in uncertain environments by synergising methods from probabilistic machine learning, stochastic differential geometry and reinforcement learning.

My research focuses on expanding the places where robots can be deployed. My lab, the Living with Robots Laboratory, has the mission of seeing robots in every home and workplace. To that end, I work on technologies to enable robots to operate in places designed for people, and technologies to enable robots to better interact with people. I am on the executive committee for RoboCup@Home. I am an assistant director of the UT Austin robotics research consortium, Texas Robotics. I am an associate editor for top conferences and journals in robotics. I work on problems relating to autonomous social human robot interaction, artificial intelligence, and robotics architectures.