John Hsu is Chief Scientist at OSRF. He received his Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 2004. His previous work includes numerical algorithm development for solving complex unsteady transonic flows and and coupled aerodynamics and finite element structural dynamics simulations. John’s research interests include solving accurate physics simulation of constrained rigid body dynamics at near real-time, realistic robotic perception simulation and development of an integrated robotic simulation platform suited for research areas pertaining to robotic navigation, planning, manipulation and perception.

Nate Koenig is the Chief Technology Officer at Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF). Prior to joining OSRF, Nate was a research engineer at Willow Garage where he conducted human robot interaction (HRI) studies and continued development of Gazebo, and open source robot simulator.

Nate started his academic career at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he earned a B.S in computer science. A one year hiatus to Xerox then lead him to the computer science master program at USC, where he joined the Interaction Lab. During his master’s studies, Nate co-started the Gazebo simulator with Prof. Andrew Howard. The goal of Gazebo is to simulate high-fidelity environments to aid in the development of robotic algorithms and systems.

Upon completion of his M.S degree, Nate continued his education at USC in the PhD program working with Prof. Maja Matarić. Nate’s PhD work focused on Bayesian approaches to Learning from Demonstration (LfD) and improved interfaces for human robot communication.

Steffi Paepcke is the Lead User Experience (UX) Designer at the Open Source Robotics Foundation. She received a Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before pursuing her graduate degree, Steffi worked as a Human-Robot Interaction research assistant with Leila Takayama at Willow Garage. Her interests include interaction design, user research and making open source software more user-friendly.

Steven Peters is a Software Engineer at the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF). He contributes to the Gazebo simulator and DRC simulator with a focus on physics simulation. He joined the Open Source Robotics Foundation in November 2012 after completing his dissertation in the MIT Robotic Mobility Group, under the direction of Karl Iagnemma. At MIT, he developed sensing and control techniques for collision avoidance and rollover prevention of passenger vehicles. He has experience with high-fidelity simulation of robot and vehicle dynamics as well as implementation of real-time control algorithms on passenger vehicles and robotic manipulators. He helped create the MIT Energy Map website to visualize energy usage in over 100 buildings on the MIT campus. He was also a member of the UC Davis 2002 and 2003 FutureTruck hybrid electric vehicle design competitions.

Morgan Quigley joined the Open Source Robotics Foundation in August 2012 after completing his dissertation defense in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Ng. At Stanford, he developed hardware and software systems for personal robots, including the design and initial implementation of the Robot Operating System (ROS) in close collaboration with colleagues at Willow Garage, including several who are now at the Open Source Robotics Foundation. On the hardware side, Morgan was the electrical and software designer for the low-cost, highly dexterous hand produced for the 2010-2012 DARPA ARM-H program on a team led by Curt Salisbury of Sandia National Laboratories. Other projects have included wifi-based indoor localization, sensor and embedded computing design for low-cost manipulators, high-resolution short-range depth scanners, multi-band software defined radio (SDR) for navigation applications, and miniature UAV software and hardware.

Jose Luis Rivero is working on release and test techniques at the OSRF. He received a computer engineering degree from Carlos III University and was working as a research support engineer at Institut de Robòtica (IRI) prior to join the Foundation.

He strongly believes that open source is the best way to bring science and technology beyond its present limits. He has been contributing to free software as a Gentoo Developer and is one of the coordinators of The Humanoid Lab, a robotics and open source initiative to bring students into the robotics world.