Speaker

Matthew Walter

Associate Professor, TTIC

Matthew Walter is Associate Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC). Previously he worked as Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research focuses on advanced perception algorithms that endow robots with a rich awareness of their surroundings and the ability to interact safely and naturally with humans in unstructured environments. He is interested in algorithms that take as input multi-modal observations of a robot's surround (e.g., laser range data, image streams, and speech) and infer properties of the objects, places, people, and events that comprise a robot's environment, at a level of abstraction necessary to realize command and control mechanisms that are both intuitive and safe.

Matthew received his Ph.D. from the Joint Program between MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in relation to his research, which considered the problem of robot localization and mapping (i.e., SLAM) within large unknown environments.

Company

TTIC

Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC or the Institute) is an accredited computer science institute, dedicated to basic research and graduate education in computer science. Its mission is to achieve international impact through world-class research and education in fundamental computer science and information technology. The Institute is distinctive to the American educational scene in its unique combination of graduate education and endowed research. TTIC is located in Hyde Park on the University of Chicago campus and has a close affiliation with the University of Chicago Computer Science Department. An agreement between the University of Chicago and TTIC allows cross-listing of computer science course offerings between the two institutions, providing students from each institution the opportunity to register in the other's courses. Faculty and students enjoy full privileges of the University library system, athletic facilities and other services.