Impacting robotics at its most critical with Eva Mungai

November 22, 2021
Eva Mungai
Eva Mungai stands next to a Digit, a bipedal Agility Robotics robot, in her lab.

As the University of Michigan Robotics Institute grew its graduate program from scratch, leaders like Eva Mungai stepped up to represent student needs and be an example for its outreach culture. The Institute recently recognized Mungai with an award for her work in bringing a student-first mentality to the new program, as well as the multiple volunteer efforts of which she’s been a part.

In this interview, Mungai shares her path into robotics, discusses the current state of robotics at Michigan, and talks about her hopes for the entire robotics field.

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How an open door led to fulfilling a robotics dream

October 7, 2021
Professor Jessy Grizzle shows Victor Popa-Simil a Cassie robot with a lidar sensor on top.
Professor Jessy Grizzle shows Victor Popa-Simil a Cassie robot with a lidar sensor on top. Papa-Simil, who studied remotely in 2020, utilized that lidar data while taking ROB 101.

Victor Popa-Simil, an engineering undergraduate, recently shared this letter he sent to Professor Jessy Grizzle, Director of the Robotics Institute, earlier this year:

Dr. Grizzle,

My name is Victor Popa-Simil and I was in your ROB 101 class last semester. I’m a freshman from Los Alamos, New Mexico looking to go into biomedical engineering (robotic integration in the medical field). I’m not sure if you remember, but I walked into your office about 5 years ago and we had a conversation that shaped my educational career.

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Announcing the 2021 Robotics Outreach Ambassadors

August 31, 2021

Robotics can inspire, and we can leverage that power to create more roboticists, keep the public properly informed on its future, and ensure robotics meets our vision of a field that improves society.

To do much of this outreach, we rely on our students. These students find time among classes and research to meet with children, middle and high schoolers, prospective graduate students and faculty, local and national community members, and media. The students present their work, run classes and demonstrations, and build up our own community–activities that bolster the culture and values of the University of Michigan Robotics Institute.

Wami Ogunbi explains the latest robots to visitors after the first Robotics Colloquium organized by Andrea Sipos and Michael Gonzalez with the Robotics Student Graduate Council.
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