Hi, I'm Jeff and along with running the LAIR Lab (Laboratory for Adaptation, Inclusion and Robotics) with our students at Olin, I teach courses such as Introduction to Sensors, Instrumentation and Measurement.

My research and teaching interests encompass some broad themes in marine robotics and hydrodynamic sensing, and accessibility and adaptive technology. In my robotics and sensing work, I draw lessons and inspiration from biological systems and a deep love of the ocean. My interest in accessibility started in childhood as well. My grandmother had Huntington's disease, used a wheelchair and needed a device that enabled her to type words and then spoke them for her.

Both robots and accessibility offer these great engineering challenges that I really enjoy taking on.

Olin allows me to do both, so that's great.

For example, since arriving in 2017, we've helped develop a better way for people in motorized wheelchairs to store and carry their possessions; designed assistive technology that adds sensors and a GPS system to motorized wheelchairs (to safely increase performance and make them more responsive to users’ needs); made a swarm of robot fish and more recently, I've been working on designing and developing a low-cost moored automatic mobile profiler with modular sensor payloads for monitoring of aquaculture farms.

If they’re running into a problem or not quite sure what to do, they know my students and I are passionate about thinking creatively and coming up with solutions to real world problems that really make a difference.

I'm also excited to have been just chosen by the IEEE's Oceanic Engineering Society as a Class of 2020 YP-BOOST Laureate. I'm also faculty advisor to the Olin Sailing team, so I'm on the water all the time!