Ariel S. Anders
32 Vassar St. 32-G418 | Cambridge, MA 02139 | aanders@csail.mit.edu

Resume

This is a pdf version of my Resume. The rest of this page presents the same material in HTML format. This resume is up to date as of August 26, 2014. Please take note of the date this resume was updated. Please send me an email if you're interested in a more recent version.

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fall 2014 - Present
  • Advisors: Prof. Leslie Kaelbling and Prof. Tomas Lozano Perez.
  • Passed the Technical Qualifying Examination.

S.M., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fall 2012 - Spring 2014
  • Advisors: Prof. Leslie Kaelbling and Prof. Tomas Lozano Perez.
  • Master Thesis: ``Learning a Strategy for Whole Arm Grasping''

B.S., Computer Engineering

University of California, Santa Cruz Fall 2008 - Spring 2012
  • Computer Engineering: Highest Honors in the major, University Honors: Summa Cum Laude
  • University of California Regent Scholar
  • Senior Design Capston Project: Team project to improve the performance of arithmetic functions for Oracle numbers within the Oracle Database; this software development project was completely done in C on x86 and ARM processors using code profilers to find performance bottle necks and applying vectorized hardware instructions (SSE) and different number representations to achieve speedup.

Publications

  • "Policy Search for Multi-Robot Coordination under Uncertainty", Chris Amato, George Konidaris, Ariel Anders, Gabriel Cruz, Jonathan How, Leslie Pack Kaelbling. In Robotics: Science and Systems XI (RSS), 2015. Nominated for best paper!
  • "Learning a strategy for whole-arm grasping", Anders, Ariel. MS thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014.
  • "Oracle Software: Improving Oracle Number Arithmetic", Brian Gold, Ariel Anders, Lincoln Thurlow, and Nathan Pemberton. Internal documentation, 2012.
  • "Dynamic Registration for Dental Robotics", Ariel Anders, Jacob Rosen. National Society of Black Engineers Proceedings of 38th Annual Convention, 2012.

Research Experience

Research Assistant, CSAIL

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Summer 2012 - Present
  • Research focus: reinforcement learning, robotic manipulation, multi-robot planning
  • Used machine learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques to implement whole-limb manipulation for grasping large objects with the PR2 robot.
  • Planning for multiple robots under uncertainty.

Undergraduate Research Assistant

University of California: Santa Cruz, Summer 2010 - Spring 2012
  • Advisor: Jacob Rosen
  • Research focus: CAD/CAM applications in dentistry, autonomous control with mechanical systems, and UI development for robotic programs.
  • Developed a work ow to execute dental crowning and implant placement procedures on static dental models that I verified experimentally. Worked on a system to implement dynamic dental procedures.

Work Experience

Software Engineering Intern, Intel

Santa Clara, CA Summer 2014
  • Responsibilities included designing, writing, testing, and documenting design automation software that uses machine learning techniques to determine proper and Experiencecient simulation points. These simulation points are used during architecture analysis of future Intel Architecture based products and platforms.

Teaching Experience

Academic Excelllence Math Co-Leader

University of California: Santa Cruz, Fall 2008 - Winter 2009
  • College math sections: Pre-Calculus and Single Variable Differential Calculus.
  • Held Office hours and co lead math sections.
  • Ace website

Math Teaching Assistant

University of California: Santa Cruz, Fall 2009 - Winter 2012

Girls in Engineering Robotics Instructor

University of California: Santa Cruz, Summer 2009
  • Taught middle school girls how to program Lego Mindstorm Robots!
  • Prepared course material on programming the robots and an introduction to Processing.

6.01 Teaching Assistant

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Spring 2015
  • Teaching Assistant for Undergraduate Course: Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Honors and Awards

Academic Honors and Scholarships

  • MIT University Center for Exemplary Mentoring (UCEM) Sloan Scholarship, 2016
  • University of California Regent Scholarship, Fall 2010-Spring 2012
  • Google Travel Scholarship for NSBE, Winter 2012
  • Mantey Undergraduate Leadership Award, Spring 2011
  • ARGV Scholarship, Spring 2010
  • Science Learning Community GPA Award, Spring 2009
  • Travel Scholarship Recipient for SACNAS, Fall 2008

Research Presentation Awards

  • 1st Place Poster Presentation, NSBE Technical Research Exhibit, NSBE Annual conference 2012
  • Special Merit in Research Award, 2011 CAMP Symposium
  • National Poster Presentation Award, 2010 ABRCMS Annual Conference
  • Best Poster Design, UCSC, 2010 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Research Fellowships

Graduate Research Fellowships

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • GEM Ph.D. Engineering Fellowship Sponsored by Intel, Summer 2014
  • Edwin S. Webster Graduate Fellowship in Electrical Engineering, Spring 2013
  • Lemelson Minority Graduate Fellowship, Fall 2012

Undergraduate Research Fellowships

University of California: Santa Cruz
  • Minority Access to Research Careers, Summer 2010- Spring 2012
  • Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Information Technology, Summer 2010

Service and Leadership Activities

Student Organization Activities

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • MIT RoboCon 2016, Conference organizer and Webdesigner
  • CSAIL Student Committee, President, AI Representative, Publicity Czar
  • MIT Concert Band, Vice President and Tour Manager
  • Ashdown House Opencer, Coffee Hour Officer
  • MIT Rowing Club, Avid Rower
  • MIT GSC Activities Committee, Committee Member
  • CSAIL Student Workshop 2012 and 2013, Committee Chairperson
University of California: Santa Cruz
  • National Society of Black Engineers, President (2 years), Peer Adviser
  • Society of Women Engineers , Treasurer, Undergrad Hardware Lab Representative
  • Tau Beta Pi, Corresponding Secretary, Exec. Board Member
  • University of California Regent Scholarship, Fall 2010-Spring 2012

Volunteer Activities

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Robot demos for different student groups, 2013 - present
  • ESP Security 2013
University of California: Santa Cruz
  • UCSC NSBE Math Boot Camp Tutor 2012
  • UCSC Google Student Ambassador 2009-2011
  • Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement Judge 2009-2011
  • Expanding Your Horizons conference workshop liaison 2009-2010

Languages

  • Python, C, Java, Matlab, Perl, HTML, shell script, Javascript

Specialized Software

  • Robot Operating System, SolidWorks, Simics, BlueSpec

Operating Systems

  • Unix, Linux, Mac, Windows

Miscellaneous

Born in California, USA. United States citizen