Director of  Integrative Arts, McCormick School of Engineering

Associate Professor of Computer Science

Many people know me for my computer vision work, but I think of myself as an AI researcher. I'm interested in how the mind works and how its structure is conditioned by the requirements of embodied activity in the world. That's academic-speak for "I want to understand how the practical needs of seeing and doing effect the design of thinking."

In addition to my work with autonomous robots, I am also interested in art and entertainment. To say the least, both have been historically undervalued in academic computer science. This is just silly. There are a lot of really interesting technical problems in art-tech, and there is even a lot of money in it; In the U.S., the entertainment budget is larger than the military budget.

To read more about my robotics work, see my research summary.