Speaker: Matt Zucker, professor of engineering, Swarthmore College

Abstract: In this talk, I will describe the transition from a research-intensive PhD to a position at a teaching-focused undergraduate institution in the context of my own career trajectory. Key topics include connections between robotics and the liberal arts, and guidelines for graduate students who are curious about pursuing teaching-focused faculty jobs.

Bio: Matt Zucker is a professor of engineering at Swarthmore College, where he has been teaching since 2010. He completed his PhD at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where he focused on applying optimization and machine learning to enhance motion planning for legged locomotion and other navigation and manipulation tasks. He is the co-inventor of CHOMP, the Covariant Hamiltonian Optimization and Motion Planning algorithm. Prior to his PhD, Matt earned his BA in cognitive science at Vassar College and worked in industry developing software for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.