LARRI Personnel

Dr. Dan Popa

Dan Popa

Director of LARRI
Professor, Electrical & Computer Eng
502-852-1410
dopopa01@louisville.edu

Dan O. Popa (Senior Member, IEEE), has nearly 30 years of research experience in robotics and automation. His early research work (1993-1998) include Adaptive Force Control and Motion Planning for Nonholonomic Robots. In 1998, he joined the Center for Automation Technologies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as a Research Scientist, where he focused on precision robotics, micromanufacturing and MEMS. In 2004, he became an Assistant and then an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington until 2015. Since 2016, he has been the Vogt Endowed Chair in Advanced Manufacturing and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Louisville. He is currently the Director of the Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI) and the Head of the Next Generation Research Group (NGS) conducting research in two main areas: 1) social and physical human–robot interaction through adaptive interfaces and robot tactile skins; and 2) the design, characterization, modeling, and control of micro, nano and precision robotic systems. Dr. Popa is the recipient of several prestigious awards and the author of over 300 peer reviewed conference and journal articles, mainly in IEEE and ASME publications. He has been very active in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), including extensive competition, workshop, conference, and journal service.

Education

• PhD in Electrical, Computer & Systems Eng., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1998
• MS in Engineering, Dartmouth College, 1994
• BS in Engineering, CS, MATH, Dartmouth College, 1993

Dr. Thomas Roussel

Tommy Roussel

Associate Director of LARRI
Asst Professor, Bio-Engineering
502-852-3971
tjrous02@louisville.edu

Dr. Roussel is currently developing a sensorized rocking chair “Rockin’Rehab” for pediatric spinal cord injury patients that includes a variety of sensors (force, tactile, rotation, acceleration, center of mass) to assess a patient’s level of trunk control, a fundamental metric that provides insight into improvements gained through a unique therapy called “Locomotor Training”. The chair will eventually incorporate machine learning to enhance assessment of patient capacity, and a neuroadaptive controller will be added to sense the intent of the user using these multi-sensing modalities and provide assisted rocking for those who are most compromised. Rocking activity will transfer back to the patient as continued rehabilitation improves their level of trunk control.

Since 2015, Dr. Roussel has been developing an Aqueous Immersion Surgical System (AISS) to study the ability to perform surgical procedures in zero gravity during long-range space missions, such as when NASA sends humans to Mars. The AISS provides accurate control of fluid delivery into a surgical immersion dome that is envisioned as a mechanism to provide irrigation, control of bleeding, and allow surgical procedures such as suturing and stapling in zero gravity. Several early implementations of the AISS technology have been evaluated on multiple parabolic missions, and a fully automated version of the system was incorporated into a unmanned payload on Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo and flew an successful suborbital research flight in May 2021 as part of the first successful flight to space from Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Education

• PhD in Mechanical Engineering, University of Louisville, 2014
• MS in Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, 2001
• MS in Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, 1997
• BA in Chemistry, University of New Orleans, 1993

Dr. Sabur Baidya

Sabur Baidya

Asst. Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
sabur.baidya@louisville.edu

Dr. Sabur Baidya is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department of J. B. Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville. He directs the Autonomous Intelligent Mobile Systems Lab (AIMS Lab), and his research areas include autonomous and cyber-physical systems in the domain of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Robotics, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), and Tactile Internet based robotic systems. On the technical side, his research employs multi-modal sensing, advanced communications (e.g., 5G/6G, LTE, C-V2X, M2M) and efficient computing systems and architecture (e.g. Edge/Fog Computing, Device-mapping, Virtualization), developing innovative distributed intelligence using optimizations and AI-driven approaches. Prior to joining UofL, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Jacobs School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He was also a visiting researcher in the WINLAB at Rutgers University, working on the MobilityFirst future Internet Architecture. He has had research internship experience in Nokia Bell Labs and Huawei Research labs, as well as five years of industry experience as a software engineer in Cisco Systems and IBM.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, 2019
• MS in Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, 2013

Dr. Yash Chitalia

Yash Chitalia

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering
734-757-0489
yash.chitalia@louisville.edu

Dr. Chitalia is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and the director of the Healthcare Robotics and Telesurgery Laboratory. His research vision is to revolutionize the field of minimally invasive surgery by designing semi-autonomous micro-and meso-scale surgical robots. Surgical success today depends heavily on our ability to detect, reach, and remove any cause of morbidity. In each of these sub-requirements, surgeons would benefit from dexterous intelligent robotic tools. Dr. Chitalia’s research aims to design such tools using micro-scale machining, 3D-printing, modeling of super-elastic structures and joints to control dexterous continuum robots.

His current work targets pediatric congenital cardiac conditions, cancer biopsy and  neurovascular conditions.

Education

• PhD in Robotics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021
• MS in Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, 2013
• BE in Electrical Engineering, University of Mumbai, 2011

Dr. Cindy Harnett

Cindy Harnett

Assoc Professor, Electrical & Computer Eng
502-852-0689
c0harn01@louisville.edu

Cindy Harnett is a professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering working in the area of robotic materials and automation. Her long term research vision is a faster route to put newly-developed materials to work in sensor and actuator applications. Advanced materials have emerged over the past 20 years with flexible, touchable characteristics, but their application is limited by the lack of reproducible integration methods for soft and compliant materials. Wires, threads, and other types of fibers are also increasingly available with special functions, and the vast majority can’t be 3D printed with desktop technology. On the smaller end of the size scale, compliant microelectromechanical devices show promise for bringing sensing functions to soft materials. Her current research aims at solving this materials integration problem with automation.

Education

• PhD in Applied & Engineering Physics, Cornell University, 2000
• BS in Physics, Harvey Mudd College, 1993

Dr. Tamer Inanc

Tamer Inanc

Assoc Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
502-852-7508
t0inan01@louisville.edu

Tamer Inanc (Senior Member, IEEE) is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. His main research interests are in Control Systems and System Identification, Control Systems Applications to Biomedical Problems, Personalized Optimal Drug Dosing, Autonomous Robotics, Optimal Trajectory Generation, Robust Active Vision Systems and 3D Fingerprint Identification and Biometrics.

Dr. Inanc worked on a robotic head-eye platform, integrating computer vision, system identification and robust control tools during his Ph.D. studies at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA under supervision of Prof. Mario Sznaier (1996-2002). In 2002, he became a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, working with Prof. Richard Murray, and developed low observable trajectory generation algorithms for unmanned air vehicles. In 2004, Dr. Inanc joined Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Louisville, and he has continued working on developing opportunistic optimal trajectory generation algorithms in collaboration with Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.

Dr. Inanc has been organizing a final robotic competition as part of his ECE564/565, Fundamentals of Autonomous Robots/Lab., class every Fall semester since 2005. For this event, he has been inviting many students from several elementary, middle, and high schools to watch the Robo-Pong, Egg-Hunt, Treasure Hunt and Box Sorting final robotic competitions. The last event was held in Dec. 2019. Since 2005, thousands of K-12 students have been reached out with the final robotic competition encouraging young minds towards robotics, engineering, and science.

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 2002
• MS in Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 1996
• BS in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, 1991

Dr. Adrian Lauf

Adrian Lauf

Assoc Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
502-852-0091
aplauf01@louisville.edu

Adrian Lauf is an associate professor in the Computer Science & Engineering department at the University of Louisville’s J. B. Speed School of Engineering. He is a core faculty member at the Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute (LARRI) as a part of the Autonomous Intelligent Mobile Systems (AIMS) lab. Dr. Lauf’s research expertise is in cooperative autonomous aerial robotics, which has the goal of enabling swarms of autonomous UAVs to accomplish objectives in a cooperative and collaborative manner. These robot swarms use multi-domain mesh networking, decentralized decision-making, node clustering to improve communication efficiency.

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, 2011
• MS in Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, 2007
• BS in Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University, 2005

Dr. M. Cynthia Logsdon

M. Cynthia Logsdon

Director, Research Academic Programs;
Director, Postdoctoral Programs, EVPRI
Professor, School of Nursing
502-852-5815
mlmcin01@louisville.edu

An internationally known PhD nurse researcher and Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, Dr. Logsdon recently served as Chair of its Maternal and Infant Expert Panel. Appointed by the Board, she has also served as Co-Chair of the Research Advisory Panel of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses and as the Co-chair of the Nursing Research Council for Catholic Health Initiatives, facilitating research for the 200 organizations making up this consortium. With a long-standing interest in clinical and interdisciplinary research, her international reputation is highlighted by invitations to review grants in Canada, Australia, England and Ireland. A prolific author, D. Logsdon serves as the editor of the international nursing journal, Journal of Advanced Nursing. Work experience includes over a decade of research administrative oversight in both academic hospital and university settings. She is widely known for program development/evaluation and mentoring to support successful researchers across all levels.

Education

• PhD in Nursing, Indiana University, 1990
• MS in Nursing, Indiana University, 1977
• BS in Nursing, Spalding University, 1975

Dr. Michael McIntyre

Michael McIntyre

Assoc Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
502-852-7505
mlmcin01@louisville.edu

Michael L. McIntyre is a native of Nelson County KY. He was with General Electric as a senior electronic design engineer from 1998 to 2003 and then again from 2006 to 2007.  He was the Kerr-Greulich Chair of Energy Systems at Western Kentucky University, Department of Engineering from 2007 to 2011. In August of 2011, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Louisville (UofL) and is currently an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the ECE Department at UofL.  His teaching and research Interests are focused on Electrical Energy Systems (Power Electronics, and Electric Drive Systems), and Control Systems (Linear Systems, Uncertain Systems, and Nonlinear Systems). His research focuses on developing novel control and observation schemes for a wide range of applications including electrical machinery, power electronic interfaces, renewable sources, grid applications, robotics, automation, and autonomous vehicles.   Dr. McIntyre has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and patents. Dr. McIntyre is a senior member of IEEE, as well as a member of numerous societies within IEEE.  He is an annual reviewer of various power electronic and control systems conferences and transaction articles.

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Clemson University, 2006
• MEng in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 2000
• BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 1997

Dr. Olfa Nasraoui

Olfa Nasraoui

Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
502-852-0191
o0nasr01@louisville.edu

Dr. Olfa Nasraoui is a Professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Endowed Chair of E-commerce and the founding director of the Knowledge Discovery & Web Mining Lab at University of Louisville. She has conducted research in machine learning and data science, in particular mining high dimensional, heterogeneous data streams, web mining and recommender systems, and currently focuses on research in fairness and explainability in AI and machine learning algorithms such as Deep Learning. She has more than 200 publications in journals, book chapters and refereed conferences, as well as 12 edited volumes. She is a National Science Foundation CAREER award winner and twice winner of Best Paper Awards in the research area of data mining and machine learning. In the area of AI, Big data, data mining and machine learning, she has served as Primary Investigator for over 10 research grant projects and as Co-PI on 6 research grant projects, funded mainly by the National Science Foundation, NASA and KSEF as a PI, and by industry or the university as a Co-PI.  Dr. Nasraoui leads as PI the NSF funded ATHENA ADVANCE initiative for STEM faculty equity at University of Louisville. She has also been leading an NSF site for Research Experiences for Teachers in Big Data and Data Science since 2018. She served as leader of the Cyber-enabled Discovery Research and Scholarship group at the Speed School of Engineering at University of Louisville between 2015 and 2019. She has served as Technical Mentor and Project Lead at the Data Science for Social Good fellowship at the University of Chicago in the 2015 summer cohort. Dr. Nasraoui has served on the organizing and program committees of several conferences and workshops, including organizing the premier series of workshops on Web Mining, WebKDD 2004-2008, as part of the ACM KDD conference. She has also served as Program Committee, Vice-Chair, Track Chair, or Senior Program Committee member for several of the most prestigious international AI and data mining conferences including KDD, RecSys, AAAI, IJCAI, ICDM, SDM, and CIKM. She serves on the Editorial board of the International Journal of Machine Learning and Computing as well as the journal of Applied Intelligence. She has also served as Associate Editor for the IEEE Access journal and guest editor for Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery. She is a member of IEEE, IEEE CIS, IEEE WIE, ACM, and ACM SIG-KDD. She currently serves on the leadership team of the Kentucky Girls STEM collaborative network and has previously served as faculty advisor of the University of Memphis chapter of the Society of Women Engineers.

Education

• PhD in Computer Science & Computer Engineering, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1999
• MS in Computer Engineering, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1992
• BS in Computer Engineering & Electrical Engineering, University of Missouri – Columbia, 1990

Dr. John Naber

John Naber

Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering
502-852-7910
jfnabe01@louisville.edu

Dr. Naber is Full Professor and Chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Louisville. He is also Director of the Custom Wireless and Circuit Design Laboratory. Prior to joining the University of Louisville in 1995, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff from 1987-1995 with the ITT Gallium Arsenide Technology Center, Roanoke, Virginia, where he designed numerous analog, digital and microwave integrated circuits. Prior to that he was a design engineer from 1985-1987 with the General Electric, Electronics Laboratory, Syracuse, New York. Dr. Naber’s active contributions to LARRI include being a member of the NSF funded Kampers project. His role on this project is to design custom circuit and printed circuit board solutions for use with robots and people. Specifically interfacing low powered, wireless sensors on people (custom wrist wearable) and robots to assist with the various human-robot interfacing projects.

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992
• MEn. in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 1985
• BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 1983

Dr. Chris Richards

Christopher Richards

Assoc Professor, Mechanical Engineering
502-852-6336
cmrich02@louisville.edu

Dr. Richards’ research is in the area of constrained attitude stabilization of spacecraft nominally controlled by adaptive controllers. The inspiration for adaptive control is to address common problems that arise in flexible spacecraft: shifting modal vibration frequencies, actuator uncertainties, deployment of payload, non-uniform fuel distribution, fuel sloshing and the incursion of unanticipated vibration modes. Moreover, to address likely scenarios of saturating actuators throughout ascent/descent, anti-windup compensation is implemented to mitigate performance degradation and instability. The research is motivated, in part, by the need to meet tighter landing zone tolerances and to manage rendezvous and proximity operations between ascent/descent vehicles and orbiting spacecraft.  Experimental application of the work uses quadcopters, which have similar dynamics as lander and ascent vehicles.

Education

• PhD in Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University, 1998
• MS in Mechanical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, 1993
• BS in Mechanical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, 1992

Dr. Kevin Walsh

Kevin Walsh

Associate Dean, Samuel T. Fife Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
852-0826
kevin.walsh@louisville.edu

Kevin Walsh is the Associate Dean of Research, Graduate Studies, and Facilities for the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville. He is also the Fife Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the founder of the $30M 10,000 sq ft UofL Micro/NanoTechnology Center (MNTC). Prof. Walsh is the director of the KY Multiscale Advanced Manufacturing node (www.kymultiscale.net), which is part of the 16-site National Science Foundation National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure network (NSF NNCI). Dr. Walsh has published over 150 technical papers in the areas of micro/nanotechnology, sensors, semiconductors, microelectronics, and MEMS. His research group has received over $35M of external research funding from DoD, DOE, NSF, NASA, NIH and industry. Prof. Walsh has 12 awarded patents and is the co-founder of 4 technical start-up companies. Dr. Walsh has taught over 20 different courses, advised over 30 completed theses, and has twice been presented with the School’s top Research Award. In 2014, he was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors.

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Cincinnati, 1992
• M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 1985
• B.E. in Electrical Engineering, University of Louisville, 1978

Dr. Xiaomei Wang

Xiaomei Wang

Asst Professor, Industrial Eng
xiaomei.wang@louisville.edu

Xiaomei (Naomi) Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Louisville. Her research interests lie in applying human factors methods on human-AI teaming, decision making, healthcare, and engineering education. Her previous research involves design and evaluation of health IT systems, and improving interpretability of machine-learning based decision support systems. Prior to joining University of Louisville, she worked at Texas A&M University as a Postdoctoral Fellow and led projects regarding offshore oil rig safety, mental health monitoring with wearable sensors, and interruption recovery under the supervisory control setting.

Education

• Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, SUNY Buffalo, 2020
• M.S. in Industrial Engineering, SUNY Buffalo, 2016
• B.S. in Industrial Design, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 2014

Dr. Karla Welch

Karla Welch

Assoc Professor, Electrical & Computer Eng
502-852-3622
kcwelc02@louisville.edu

Dr. Karla Conn Welch earned her undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Kentucky. Her MS degree in 2005 and PhD in 2009, are from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at Vanderbilt University. At the start of 2010, she began as an Assistant Professor in the University of Louisville’s ECE department. She has been an Associate Professor in ECE since 2016. Her research has received support from agencies such as NSF, NASA, and the Louisville Downtown Development Corporation.

Education

• PhD in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, 2009
• MS in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, 2005
• BS in Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, 2002

Visiting Scholars

Susan Day

Dr. Susan Day

Susan Day, Ph.D. is the principal of Susan Day-Whiting Research Development Services, a consulting firm specializing in research and proposal development, NSF engineering and computer science programs and evaluation. Her dissertation research explored institutional racism and juvenile justice decision-making involving minority youth analyzing over 100,000 cases of Florida Department of Juvenile Justice offenses. Her early career work, funded by federal, state and local grants, focused on advocacy for minority youth, disadvantaged communities and custodial grandparent households. She served as the program coordinator and manager for the National Balanced and Restorative Justice Program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a program director for Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Urban Redevelopment and Empowerment (FAU CURE), Susan directed services for minority youth and disadvantaged communities in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, Florida. She was also a co-investigator on a National Institutes of Health grant designed to assess cultural bias in tests of cognitive impairment. In addition, Susan has over 25 years’ experience in the field of federal policy and program implementation and evaluation. She has conducted evaluations supported by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services as well as the National Science Foundation. As both an evaluator and research development professional, Susan has helped write numerous successful proposals including a U.S. Department of Labor Apprenticeship, U.S. Department of Education Title III STEM Articulation; a National Institutes of Health R15; National Science Foundation (NSF) awards (REU, CISE CNS Core, CRII, CAREERs, IUSE, ICORP, I/UCRC Phase II, SaTC), and a Navy HBCU/MI Faculty Start-up Program in Materials. Susan also provided research development and evaluation planning for one of the nine 2019/2020 Gen 4 ERC finalist teams.

LARRI Staff

LARRI Students