CCCC STEM Speaker Series

STEM Speaker Series

Explore Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Flyer

Undersea Vehicles
Bob Brown – Engineering Manager, Hydroid, Inc.
11:00am – Lorusso Solarium (Tech Building)

A career in operating some of the largest (nuclear submarines) and the smallest (ALVIN) manned undersea vehicles and designing both manned and autonomous undersea vehicles.

The Knowledge to Succeed
Bob Melvin – Vice President of Engineering, Teledyne Benthos
1:00pm–2:00pm – Lorusso Solarium (Tech Building)

Being an engineer means more than just designing. It takes a desire to learn, to recognize where you lack knowledge, and the curiosity to devise tests to eliminate those knowledge gaps.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Flyer

Career profile: Ecological monitoring and research scientist at Cape Cod National Seashore
Stephen Smith, PhD – Plant Ecologist, Cape Cod National Seashore
1:00pm–2:00pm – Lorusso Solarium (Tech Building)

A discussion of past and present scientific projects and career information, including what the future holds for this profession and how students should prepare for similar jobs in environmental science.

Monday, April 30, 2012
Flyer

Working with Social Robots
Jin Joo Lee – MIT PhD student, Personal Robots Group
11:00am – Lorusso Solarium (Tech Building)

Developing socially intelligent robots for more effective Human-Robot Interactions (HRI).

1:00pm – Break Out Session
WeDo Robotics – Lorusso 103 (Tech Building)

See also: STEM Expo, May 24, 2012, Bridgewater State University

Bob Brown

Engineering Manager, Hydroid, Inc.

Bob Brown Graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy with a BS in Marine Engineering. During a 20 year career in the Navy he served on nuclear submarines including commanding officer of three nuclear attack submarines. He worked for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a pilot of the Deep Submersible ALVIN, mate of the Research Vessel LULU, Lead ALVIN project engineer and as the ALVIN Group Manager.

Currently, Bob is the Engineering Manager of Hydroid, Inc., a designer and fabricator of autonomous underwater vehicles.

Bob Melvin

Vice President of Engineering, Teledyne Benthos

Bob Melvin received a MS in Electrical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maine. He holds three patents in the area of signal processing.

Teledyne Benthos is comprised of three companies, each with their own engineering departments which Bob oversees. Teledyne Benthos and Webb Research are on Cape Cod, while Teledyne Gavia is in Iceland. He is frequently invited to conferences to speak on Teledyne Benthos’ new Knowledge Based Product Development process that focuses on learning first before starting any design, and capturing knowledge in a searchable library for the future.

Bob considers himself a practical engineer, always looking for ways to improve himself and the company.

Stephen Smith, PhD

Plant Ecologist, Cape Cod National Seashore

Stephen Smith is a Plant Ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore, with expertise in plant physiology and plant community ecology. Stephen received a B.S. degree from Florida State University and a M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Miami.

After spending five years working on the restoration of the Florida Everglades, he assumed his current position with the National Park Service in 2002. Stephen's current activities are focused on understanding the dynamics of spatial and temporal variability within plant communities in all the different ecosystems within the Seashore. A large part of this work involves assessments of salt marsh ecosystem structure and function in response to tidal restoration and causes and consequences of salt marsh dieback.

Jin Joo Lee

MIT PhD student, Personal Robots Group

Jin Joo is a graduate researcher at the MIT Media lab where she works on modeling the dynamics of social interaction to design for more effective human-robot interactions.

She received a BS/MS degree in Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she researched with Dr. Andrea Thomaz in the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab (SIM) to teach Simon, an upper torso humanoid robot, how to learn goal-oriented actions and sequential constraints through human demonstrations. She also researched with Dr. Ayanna Howard in the HumAnS Lab where she developed robotic adventure games to introduce middle school students to the fundamental concepts of programming.

Her research interests are in human-robot interaction, social robots, and human social and behavioral psychology.