1. No category

Curriculum Vitae
Ross Alan Mead
3710 McClintock Avenue
Ronald Tutor Hall (RTH), Room 423
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0781
http://robotics.usc.edu/~rossmead
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: +1 (213) 740-6245
Mobile: +1 (618) 696-2600
EDUCATION
Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science, Graduation May 2016 (Expected)
University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA
Master of Science in Computer Science, Graduated May 2015
University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Summa Cum Laude, Graduated December 2007
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), Edwardsville, IL
EXPERIENCE
University of Southern California (USC), 08/2008–present
Graduate Research Assistant, 05/2013–present
 Modeling social behaviors for human-robot interaction, 05/2013–present
Body Engineering Los Angeles (NSF GK-12) Fellow, 05/2012–05/2013
 Using sociable robotics to promote STEM in K-12 education, 05/2012–present
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, 05/2009–05/2012
 Proxemics: social spacing in situated human-robot interaction, 01/2010–present
 Oculesics: eye gaze in situated human-robot interaction, 05/2009–present
Graduate Research Assistant, 08/2008–04/2009
 Kinesics: body language in situated human-robot interaction, 01/2009–present
 Deixis: spatial referencing in situated human-robot interaction, 08/2008–present
STEM Outreach Coordinator, 08/2008–present
 Using robotics to promote STEM in K-12 education, 08/2004–present
 Greater Los Angeles Botball regional organizer and instructor, 08/2008–present
 Global Conference on Educational Robotics general organizer, 08/2013–08/2014
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), 08/2003–08/2008
Research Assistant, 05/2005–08/2008
 Algorithms for control of large formations of robots, 05/2005–present
 Impromptu teams of heterogeneous mobile robots, 08/2006–present
 Autonomous golf cart platform for human-robot interaction, 05/2007–08/2009
 Intelligent walking robots for K-12 and higher education, 08/2006–08/2008
 Using robotics to promote girls' STEM self-efficacy in STEM, 01/2005–08/2005
1 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
Teaching Assistant, 05/2005–08/2008
 Mobile Robotics: Integrated Systems Design, 01/2005–12/2008
 Human-Computer Interaction, 01/2006–05/2006
 Engineering Problem Solving, 01/2005–05/2007
STEM Outreach Coordinator, 08/2004–12/2006
 Greater St. Louis Botball regional organizer and instructor, 08/2007–present
 Using robotics to promote STEM in K-12 education, 08/2004–08/2008
 Odyssey Science camp counselor, 07/2007–08/2007
 RoboSoccer game designer and tournament coordinator, 08/2006–12/2006
 Firebot Challenge game designer and tournament coordinator, 08/2005–12/2005
 RoboCraft game designer and tournament coordinator, 08/2004–12/2004
KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (KIPR), 01/2003–present
Botball Instructor, 01/2006–present
 Technical workshop instructor in Greater St. Louis, Greater San Diego, Greater
Los Angeles, Northern California, Oklahoma, and Qatar regions, 05/2006–present
 Greater St. Louis and Greater Los Angeles regional organizer, 05/2007–present
 Team mentor for North Hollywood High School, 12/2009–present
 Game designer and tournament coordinator, 05/2008–present
 Software and hardware debugger, 01/2003–present
 Champion competitor, 01/2003–present
Semio, 01/2014–present
Founder & CEO, 01/2014–present
 A robotics software startup enabling the personal robot revolution
 Making robots easy to use through intuitive human-robot interfaces
 Developing an interaction engine, editor, and software development kit
HONORS
Awards:
 Finalist, USC 6th Annual Graduate Research Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, 2014.
 Innovation in Service Learning Award, USC Community Service Awards, Los Angeles,
CA, 2013.
 Outstanding Doctoral Consortium Paper Runner-Up Award, Doctoral Consortium of
2012 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2012), Santa Monica,
CA, 2012.
 Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award, USC Office of Graduate & Professional
Programs, Los Angeles, CA, 2012.
 Best Presentation Award, Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS 2011) Workshop on
Human-Robot Interaction: Perspectives and Contributions to Robotics from the Human
Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, 2011.
2 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV














May 21, 2015
Best Poster Award, Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS 2011) Workshop on HumanRobot Interaction: Perspectives and Contributions to Robotics from the Human Sciences,
Los Angeles, CA, 2011.
Best Paper Award Nominee, The 19th IEEE International Symposium in Robot and
Human Interactive Communication (Ro-Man 2010), Viareggio, Italy, 2010.
SIUE Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Edwardsville, IL, 2008.
Technical Innovation Award for Hardware and Software Integration, Mobile Robot
Competition of 2008 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI08), Chicago, IL, 2008.
Technical Innovation Award for Multi-Robot Coordination, Mobile Robot Competition
of 2008 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-08), Chicago,
IL, 2008.
Technical Innovation Award for Multi-Robot Coordination, Robot Competition and
Exhibition of 2007 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI07), Vancouver, BC, 2007.
Student Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois, The Lincoln Academy of Illinois,
Springfield, IL, 2007.
SIUE Best Senior Project in Engineering, The 2007 SIUE Senior Project Showcase,
Edwardsville, IL, 2007.
SIUE Best Poster, 2007 SIUE Graduate Research Symposium, Edwardsville, IL, 2007.
SIUE Nori’s Sushi Restaurant Scholarship, Edwardsville, IL, 2007.
SIUE Undergraduate Research Academy Scholar, Edwardsville, IL, 2006.
SIUE Undergraduate Research Academy Scholar, Edwardsville, IL, 2005.
SIUE Ella Ott Wiesmann Award, Edwardsville, IL, 2006.
SIUE Outstanding Sophomore Award, Edwardsville, IL, 2005.
Competitions:
 Champion, Team Crash, Robot Combat League (Season 1), Los Angeles, CA, 2013.
 Quarterfinalist, Team A.X.E., Robot Combat League (Season 1), Los Angeles, CA,
2013.
 1st Place, International Beyond Botball Robotics Competition, Honolulu, HI, 2007.
 2nd Place, International Beyond Botball Robotics Competition, Norman, OK, 2006.
 2nd Place, Mechmania XI: National ACM C++/AI Programming Contest, UrbanaChampaign, IL, 2005.
 1st Place, International Collegiate Botball Robotics Competition, San Jose, CA, 2004.
 1st Place, Illinois State WYSE Academic Challenge Test in Computer Science, UrbanaChampaign, IL, 2003.
 1st Place, SIUE Robotics Competition, 2002.
 1st Place, SIUE Robotics Competition, 2001.
3 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
GRANTS, CONTRACTS, AND GIFTS
Significant Contributions:
 iRobot Ava Mobile Robotics® Platform for "Socially Aware Navigation for the iRobot
Ava® Mobile Robotics Platform". PI: M. Matarić. Amount: $60,000. 05/2014–05/2016
 USC Undergraduate Research Associates Program (URAP) award for "SmartRoom:
Designing a Sensor-rich Environment for Monitoring and Controlling Human-Robot
Interaction Experiments". PI: M. Matarić. Amount: $9,500. 04/2014–08/2015
 NSF National Robotics Initiative (NRI) Small collaborative grant for "Spatial Primitives
for Enabling Situated Human-Robot Interaction" (IIS-1208500). PI: M. Matarić (USC).
Co-PIs: C. Nass (Stanford). Amount: $750,000 total. 07/2012–07/2015
 NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) collaborative
grant for "Maximizing Mentor Effectiveness In Increasing Student Interest And Success
In STEM: An Empirical Approach Employing Robotics Education" (DRL-1139415). PI:
G. Mayer (SIUE). Co-PIs: M. Matarić (USC), S. Thomas (SIUE), S. Locke (SIUE), J.B.
Weinberg (SIUE), S. Marlette (SIUE). Amount: $778,481 total ($353,073 USC portion
with Matarić as PI). 07/2011–07/2014
 NSF Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) Small grant for "Socially Assistive HumanMachine Interaction for Improved Compliance and Health Outcomes" (IIS-1117279). PI:
M. Matarić (USC). Amount: $422,547 total. 12/2011–08/2014
Completed:
 USC Undergraduate Research Associates Program (URAP) award for "Space, Speech,
and Gesture: Enabling Technologies for Situated Human-Robot Interaction". PI: M.
Matarić. Amount: $10,000. 08/2012–08/2013
 USC Undergraduate Research Associates Program (URAP) award for "Automated
Caricature of Robot Expressions in Socially Assistive Human-Robot Interaction". PI: M.
Matarić. Amount: $10,000. 08/2011–05/2012
 USC Undergraduate Research Associates Program (URAP) award for "A Distributed
Approach to Multi-Robot Obstacle Avoidance". PI: M. Matarić. Amount: $6,000.
08/2010–05/2011
 SIUE Research Grants for Graduate Students (RGGS) award for "Cellular Automata for
Control and Interaction of Large Formations of Robots". Fall 2007, PI: R. Mead.
Amount: $330. 08/2007–08/2008
 SIUE Undergraduate Research Academy (URA) award for "Impromptu Teams of
Heterogeneous Mobile Robots". PI: J.B. Weinberg. Amount: $1,200. 05/2006–05/2007
 SIUE Undergraduate Research Academy (URA) award for "Algorithms for Control and
Interaction of Large Formations of Robots". PI: J.B. Weinberg. Amount: $1,200.
05/2005–05/2006
4 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
PUBLICATIONS
Theses (2)
1. Mead, R. (2015) "Situated Proxemics and Multimodal Communication: Space, Speech,
and Gesture in Human-Robot Interaction", PhD Dissertation, 2015, University of
Southern California (USC), in process.
2. Mead, R. (2008) "Cellular Automata for Control and Interactions of Robots in Large
Formations", Master's Thesis, 2008, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE).
Refereed Journal Articles (2)
1. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M. (2013) "Automated Proxemic Feature Extraction
and Behavior Recognition: Applications in Human-Robot Interaction", International
Journal of Social Robotics, 5(3), pp. 367-368.
2. Wade, E., Parnandi, A., Mead, R., and Matarić, M. (2012) "Socially Assistive Robotics
for Guiding Motor Task Practice", Paladyn Journal of Behavioral Robotics Special Issue
on Assistive and Rehabilitation Robotics, 2(4), pp. 218-227.
Invited Refereed Book Chapters (2)
1. Thomas, S.L., Weinberg, J.B., and Mead, R.A. (2015) "Mentoring for STEM SelfEfficacy Through Robotics", Handbook on Research in Robotics and Mechatronics, IGI
Global, to appear.
2. Mead, R.A., Thomas, S.L., and Weinberg, J.B. (2012) "From Grade School to Grad
School: An Integrated STEM Pipeline Model through Robotics", Robots in K-12
Education: A New Technology for Learning, Bradley S. Barker, Gwen Nugent, Neal
Grandgenett, and Viacheslav I. Adamchuk (eds.), IGI Global.
Refereed Conference Proceedings (10)
1. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J (2015) "Proxemics and Performance: Subjective Human
Evaluations of Autonomous Sociable Robot Distance and Social Signal Understanding",
Proceedings of The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and
Systems (IROS 2015), Hamburg, Germany, September/October 2015, in review.
2. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J (2015) "Robots Have Needs Too: People Adapt Their
Proxemic Preferences to Improve Autonomous Robot Understanding of Human Social
Signals", Proceedings of The Fourth International Symposium on New Frontiers in
Human-Robot Interaction (NF-HRI 2015), University of Canterbury, Kent, United
Kingdom, April 2015, to appear. (Best Paper Award.)
3. Tosun, T., Mead, R., and Stengel, R. (2014) "A General Method for Kinematic
Retargeting: Adapting Poses between Humans and Robots", in the Proceedings of the
ASME 2014 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE
2014), Montreal, Quebec, November 2014, to appear.
4. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2014) "Perceptual Models of Human-Robot Proxemics",
Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Experimental Robotics (ISER
2014), Marrakech/Essaouira, Morocco, June 2014, to appear.
5. Mead, R., Zeltner, S., and Matarić, M.J. (2013) "Integrating ROS into Educational
Robotics: Bridging the Gap between Grade School and Grad School", Proceedings of the
5 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
2013 Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER 2013), Norman, Oklahoma,
July 2013, online.
6. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Proxemic Feature Recognition for
Interactive Robots: Automating Metrics from the Social Sciences", Proceedings of the
2011 International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2011), Amsterdam,
Netherlands, November 2011, pp. 52-61.
7. St. Clair, A., Mead, R., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Investigating the Effects of Visual
Saliency on Deictic Gesture Production by a Humanoid Robot", Proceedings of The 20th
IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RoMan 2011), Atlanta, Georgia, July-August 2011, pp. 210-216.
8. Wade, E.R., Dye, J., Mead, R., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Assessing the Quality and
Quantity of Social Interaction in a Socially Assistive Robot-Guided Therapeutic Setting",
The 2011 IEEE 12th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2011),
Zurich, Switzerland, June-July 2011, pp. 1-6.
9. Mead, R., Wade, E.R., Johnson, P., St. Clair, A., Chen, S., and Matarić, M.J. (2010) "An
Architecture for Rehabilitation Task Practice in Socially Assistive Human-Robot
Interaction", Proceedings of The 19th IEEE International Symposium in Robot and
Human Interactive Communication (Ro-Man 2010), Viareggio, Italy, September 2010,
pp. 404-409. (Best Paper Award Nominee.)
10. Mead, R., Long, R., and Weinberg, J.B. (2009) "Fault-Tolerant Formations of Mobile
Robots", Proceedings of The 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS 2009), St. Louis, MO, October 2009, pp. 4805-4810.
Refereed Conference Posters and Videos (13)
1. Mead, R. Atrash, A. Kaszubski, E., St. Clair, A., Greczek, J., Clabaugh, C., Kohan, B.
and Matarić, M.J. (2014) "Building Blocks of Social Intelligence: Enabling Autonomy
for Socially Intelligent and Assistive Robots", The 2014 Association for the Advancement
of Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Human-Robot
Interaction (AI-HRI), Arlington, Virginia, November 2014, to appear.
2. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2013) "Autonomous Control of Human-Robot Spacing: A
Socially Situated Approach", ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI 2013),
Los Angeles, California, July 2013, pp. 91-91.
3. Lu, D.V. and Mead, R. (2012) "Introducing Students Grades 6-12 to Expressive
Robotics", Proceedings of The 7th ACM/IEEE International Conference on HumanRobot Interaction (HRI 2012), Boston, Massachusetts, March 2012, pp. 411-412.
4. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2012) "A Probabilistic Framework for Autonomous
Proxemic Control in Situated and Mobile Human-Robot Interaction", Proceedings of The
7th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2012),
Boston, Massachusetts, March 2012, pp. 193-194.
5. Tosun, T., Mead, R., and Matarić, M.J. (2012) "Kinematic Retargeting with Potential
Fields: Enabling a Unified Social Behavior Repository", Proceedings of The 7th
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2012), Boston,
Massachusetts, March 2012, presented.
6. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Recognition of Spatial Dynamics for
Predicting Social Interaction", The 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on HumanRobot Interaction (HRI 2011), Lausanne, Switzerland, March 2011, pp. 201-202.
6 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
7. Beer, B., Mead, R., and Weinberg, J.B. (2010) "A Distributed Method for Evaluating
Properties of a Robot Formation", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 24th AAAI
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2010), Atlanta, GA, July 2010, pp. 19 231924.
8. Long, R., Mead, R., and Weinberg, J.B. (2010) "Distributed Auction-Based Initialization
of Mobile Robot Formations", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 24th AAAI
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2010), Atlanta, GA, July 2010, pp. 19491950.
9. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2009) "The Power of Suggestion: Teaching Sequences
Through Assistive Robot Motions", Proceedings of The 4th ACM/IEEE International
Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2009), San Diego, CA, March 2009, pp.
317-318.
10. Mead, R. and Weinberg, J.B. (2008) "2-Dimensional Cellular Automata Approach for
Robot Grid Formations", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 23rd National
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2008), Chicago, IL, July 2008, pp. 18181819.
11. Mead, R. and Weinberg. J.B. (2007) "Impromptu Teams of Heterogeneous Mobile
Robots", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 22nd National Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2007), Vancouver, BC, July 2007, pp. 1890-1891.
12. Mead, R., Weinberg, J.B., and Croxell, J.R. (2007) "An Implementation of Robot
Formations using Local Interactions", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 22nd
National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2007), Vancouver, BC, July 2007,
pp. 1989-1990. (Technical Innovation Award for Multi-Robot Coordination.)
13. Mead, R. and Weinberg, J.B. (2006) "Algorithms for Control and Interaction of Large
Formations of Robots", Student Abstract and Poster Program of the 21st National
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2006), Boston, MA, July 2006, pp. 18911892.
Unrefereed Conference Proceedings (1)
1. Mead, R. and Salem, M. (2012) "Workshop on Speech and Gesture Production in
Virtually and Physically Embodied Conversational Agents", Proceedings of the 14th
ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2012), Santa Monica,
California, October 2012, pp. 607-608.
Refereed Workshop Papers (16)
1. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2015) "Toward Robot Adaptation of Human Speech and
Gesture Parameters in a Unified Framework of Proxemics and Multimodal
Communication", 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA 2015) Workshop on Machine Learning for Social Robots, Seattle, Washington,
May 2015, to appear.
2. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2015) "Social Robotics in the Middle School Classroom:
Increasing Student STEM Achievement-Related Choices", The 10th ACM/IEEE
International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2015) Education Workshop:
How to design and teach courses in Human-Robot Interaction, Portland, Oregon, March
2015, to appear.
7 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
3. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2014) "Probabilistic Models of Proxemics for Spatially
Situated Communication in HRI", The 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2014) Algorithmic Human-Robot Interaction Workshop,
Bielefeld, Germany, March 2014.
4. Mead, R. (2012) "Space, Speech, and Gesture in Human-Robot Interaction", Doctoral
Consortium of The 14th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI
2012), Santa Monica, California, October 2012, pp. 333-336. (Outstanding Doctoral
Consortium Paper Runner-Up Award.)
5. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M.J. (2012) "Representations of Proxemic Behavior
for Human-Machine Interaction", 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer
Interaction (NordiCHI 2012) Workshop on Proxemics in Human-Computer Interaction,
Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2012.
6. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Automated Analysis of Proxemic
Behavior: Leveraging Metrics from the Social Sciences", 2011 Robotics: Science and
Systems (RSS 2011) Workshop on Human-Robot Interaction: Perspectives and
Contributions to Robotics from the Human Sciences, Los Angeles, California, July 2011.
(Best Presentation Award and Best Poster Award.)
7. St. Clair, A., Atrash, A., Mead, R., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "Speech, Gesture, and
Space: Investigating Explicit and Implicit Communication in Multi-Human Multi-Robot
Collaborations", The 2011 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI 2011) Spring Symposium on Multi-Robot Systems and Physical Data Structures
(SS-11-07), Stanford, CA, March 2011.
8. Beer, B., Mead, R., and Weinberg, J.B. (2011) "A Distributed Spanning Tree Method for
Extracting System and Environmental Information from a Network of Mobile Robots",
The 2011 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2011) Spring
Symposium on Multi-Robot Systems and Physical Data Structures (SS-11-07), Stanford,
CA, March 2011.
9. Mead, R., Weinberg, J.B., and Matarić, M.J. (2010) "An Ontology-based Multimodal
Communication System for Human-Robot Interaction in Socially Assistive Domains",
2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010)
Workshop on Multimodal Human-Robot Interfaces, Anchorage, AK, May 2010.
10. St. Clair, A., Mead, R., and Matarić, M.J. (2010) "Monitoring and Guiding User
Attention and Intention in Human-Robot Interaction", 2010 IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010) Workshop on Interactive
Communication for Autonomous Intelligent Robots (ICAIR), Anchorage, AK, May 2010.
11. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2010) "Automated Caricature of Robot Expressions in
Socially Assistive Human-Robot Interaction", The 5th ACM/IEEE International
Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) Workshop on What Do
Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say about HRI?, Osaka, Japan, March 2010.
12. Mead, R. and Weinberg, J.B. (2008) "A Distributed Control Algorithm for Robots in
Grid Formations", The 2008 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI 2008) Workshop on Mobile Robotics: Mobility and Manipulation (WS-08-02),
Chicago, IL, July 2008. (Technical Innovation Award for Multi-Robot Coordination.)
13. Mead, R., Weinberg, J.B., Toennies, J., Croxell, J.R., Adams, B., Engel, G., Hiatt, J.,
Italiano, N., Krauss, R., Backs, A., and Gorlewicz, M. (2008) "Road Runner: An
Autonomous Vehicle for HRI Research", The 2008 Association for the Advancement of
8 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2008) Workshop on Mobile Robotics: Mobility and
Manipulation (WS-08-02), Chicago, IL, July 2008. (Technical Innovation Award for
Hardware and Software Integration.)
14. Weinberg, J.B., Yu, W., Wheeler-Smith, K., Knight, R., Mead, R., Bernstein, I., Croxell,
J., and Webster, D. (2008) "Making Intelligent Walking Robots Accessible to Educators:
A Brain and Sensor Pack for Legged Mobile Robots", The 2008 Association for the
Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2008) Workshop on AI Education, Chicago,
IL, July 2008, pp. 84-89.
15. Mead, R., Weinberg, J.B., and Croxell, J.R. (2007) "A Demonstration of a Robot
Formation Control Algorithm and Platform", Robot Competition and Exhibition (WS-0715) of the 22nd National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2007), Vancouver,
BC, July 2007, pp. 23-27.
16. Croxell, J.R., Mead, R., and Weinberg, J.B. (2007) "Designing Robot Competitions That
Promote AI Solutions: Lessons Learned Competing and Designing", The 2007 American
Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2007) Spring Symposium on Robots and
Robot Venues: Resources for AI Education (SS-07-09), Stanford, CA, March 2007, pp.
29-34.
Technical Reports (2)
1. Mead, R. and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "An Experimental Design for Studying Proxemic
Behavior in Human-Robot Interaction", Technical Report of the USC Center for Robotics
and Embedded Systems (CRES-11-001), Los Angeles, CA, September 2011.
2. Mead, R., Atrash, A., and Matarić, M.J. (2011) "A Preliminary Validation of Automated
Feature Recognition for Proxemic Behavior Analysis", Technical Report of the USC
Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems (CRES-11-002), Los Angeles, CA,
September 2011.
INVITED TALKS (EXCLUDING CONFERENCE PAPER PRESENTATIONS)
1. "Building Blocks of Social Intelligence: Enabling Autonomy for Socially Intelligent and
Assistive Robots", USC Computer Science Advisory Board, November 2014.
2. "Modeling Space, Speech, and Gesture for Social Robots", USC iLab, October 2014.
3. "Science on Screen: Robot & Frank", Cinefamily, Los Angeles, CA, June 2014.
4. "Designing Social Behaviors for Personal Robots", Immersive Education Initiative
(IMMERSION 2014), Los Angeles, CA, June 2014.
5. "Designing Behaviors for Sociable Robots: Building Blocks for Social Intelligence", The
AAAI at USC, Los Angeles, CA, March 2014.
6. "Designing Behaviors for Sociable Robots", Mathobotix, Irvine, CA, August 2013.
7. "Designing Social Behaviors for Interactive Robots", The 2013 Global Conference on
Educational Robotics (GCER 2013), Norman, OK, July 2013.
8. "Designing Robots that Interact with People", Mathobotix, Irvine, CA, June 2013.
9. "From Robot Competitor to Robot Combatant... And Everything in Between", The 2013
European Conference on Educational Robotics (ECER 2013), Vienna, Austria, April
2013.
10. "What is a Robot?", USC Robotics Open House, Los Angeles, CA, April 2013.
11. "From the RCX to the PR2: Steps to Becoming a Robot Scientist", The 2010 Global
Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER 2010), Edwardsville, IL, July 2010.
9 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
STUDENT MENTORING
Master's Student Mentor to 22 students:
Current (2):
1. Lixing Liu (Fall 2013–present)
2. Kedar Prabhu (Fall 2014–present)
Past (20):
1. Pierre Johnson (Fall 2009–Spring 2010)
2. Avinash Parnandi (Fall 2009–Spring 2010)
3. Vikramjeet Singh (Summer 2010)
4. Jamy Li (Summer 2010)
5. Divya Sharma (Fall 2011–Fall 2012)
6. Saranyaraj Rajendran (Spring 2012–Summer 2012)
7. Akanxa Padhi (Spring 2012–Fall 2012)
8. Tian Zhu (Summer 2012–Spring 2013)
9. Dhruv Monga (Summer 2012–Spring 2014)
10. Stefan Zeltner (Fall 2012–Spring 2015)
11. Zheng Tao (Spring 2013)
12. Shuo Wang (Fall 2013)
13. Nivedita Manjunath (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
14. George Puthanpurackal (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
15. Akash Metawala (Fall 2013–Summer 2014)
16. Jigar Gada (Spring 2014)
17. Yash Goyal (Spring 2014–Fall 2014)
18. Aditya Bhatter (Spring 2014–Spring 2015)
19. Anagha Kulkarni (Spring 2014–Spring 2015)
20. Varalika Tripathi (Fall 2014)
Undergraduate Student Mentor to 42 students:
Current (6):
1. Jonathan Frey (Fall 2014–present)
2. Cherrie Wang (Fall 2014–present)
3. Eric Deng (Fall 2014–present)
4. Tianchen (Frank) Zhang (Spring 2015–present)
5. Madison Evans (Summer 2015)
6. Tsung-Han (Stephen) Sher (Summer 2015–present)
Past (36):
1. Karie Lau (Fall 2008–Spring 2009)
2. Lynn Jane Ho (Fall 2008–Spring 2009)
3. Mary Grace Ermitanio (Spring 2009–Fall 2011)
4. Julia Chaves (Summer 2010)
10 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
5. Austen Hagio (Summer 2010)
6. Yeon Jin (Grace) Lee (Summer 2010)
7. Gavin McCarter (Summer 2010–Summer 2011)
8. Cauchy Choi (Fall 2010–Spring 2011)
9. John O'Hollaren (Fall 2010–Fall 2011)
10. Suk-Jin Lee (Fall 2010–Fall 2011)
11. Dan Ho (Summer 2011)
12. Aravindh Mahendran (Summer 2011)
13. Rory Shevin (Summer 2011)
14. Tarik Tosun (Summer 2011–Summer 2012)
15. Jeff Kamei (Summer 2011–Fall 2012)
16. Edward Kaszubski (Summer 2011–Spring 2014)
17. Dhruv Monga (Fall 2011–Spring 2012)
18. Alex Jones (Spring 2012–Spring 2013)
19. Amy Nham (Spring 2012–Spring 2013)
20. Dylan Foster (Spring 2012–Summer 2014)
21. Andrew Downing (Spring 2012–Fall 2014)
22. Nathan Lin (Summer 2012)
23. Kathryn Yu (Summer 2012–Fall 2012)
24. Victor Sherman (Fall 2012–Spring 2013)
25. Yingchao Lin (Spring 2013–Summer 2013)
26. Peter Zhang (Spring 2013–Spring 2014)
27. Connie Wu (Summer 2013–Spring 2014)
28. Everardo Uribe (Fall 2013)
29. Lauren Howe (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
30. Colette Speer (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
31. Brian Kim (Fall 2013–Fall 2014)
32. Braden McDorman (Fall 2013–Spring 2015)
33. Erika King (Spring 2014–Summer 2014)
34. Anna Flynn (Summer 2014)
35. Min Young Huh (Summer 2014)
36. Lizhi Fan (Spring 2014–Fall 2014)
K-12 Student Mentor to 22 students:
Current (1):
1. Chloe Grubb (Summer 2014–present)
Past (21):
1. Trevor Frese (Spring 2010–Summer 2012)
2. Victor Sherman (Spring 2010–Summer 2012)
3. Ben Shukman (Spring 2010–Summer 2012)
4. Carlos Cifuentes (Summer 2011)
5. Jacob Copus (Summer 2011)
6. David Cox (Summer 2011)
7. Daniel Flamenco (Summer 2011)
11 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV
May 21, 2015
8. Christina Ramsey (Summer 2011)
9. Kaylee Guzman (Fall 2011–Spring 2012)
10. Christopher Hernandez (Fall 2011–Spring 2012)
11. Daniela Raygoza (Fall 2011–Spring 2012)
12. Colette Speer (Summer 2012–Summer 2013)
13. Aldo Martinez (Fall 2012–Summer 2013)
14. Helena Roberts-Matarić (Summer 2013)
15. Katie Gundlach (Summer 2013–Spring 2014)
16. Denny Min (Summer 2013–Spring 2014)
17. Edward Leon (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
18. Ashim Nabith (Fall 2013–Spring 2014)
19. Paul Chong (Fall 2014–Spring 2015)
20. Jeanelle Guardado (Fall 2014–Spring 2015)
21. Nicole Chen (Summer 2014)
K-12 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH





General Organizer of the 2014 Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER2014): Organized the conference, including venue, housing, events, activities, budget,
and purchases. Students and teachers give presentations and exchange ideas on topics that
range from curriculum integration to technical aspects of robotics. Professional speakers
provide inspiration and insight into their robotics-related topics of expertise. The
conference features the International Botball Tournament, as well as the KIPR Open
Tournament for adults. 07/2013–present
Google CS4HS Project on USC Computer Science Mentorship for the Advancement of
Teachers and Students in Los Angeles (USC CSMARTS in LA): Developed and delivered
hardware, software, and curricular materials to increase high school teacher and student
knowledge of computational thinking through the use of robotics programming, using a
participatory hands-on teacher in-service professional development approach with a
hybrid delivery. The provided materials were utilized by teachers in their own curricular
development, and shared with students for building and manipulation in preparations for
integrating computational thinking through robotics into the curriculum and for
participation in robot competitions. 05/2013–12/2013
PhD Research Fellow of the USC Body Engineering Los Angeles (BELA) program:
Integrated socially assistive robotics into middle school STEM curricula; taught two full
days a week at Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy in Los Angeles, working
primarily with underrepresented minorities (e.g., African-American and Latino/Latina
students), as well as underprivileged students (e.g., at-risk and Title-1). 05/2012–05/2013
Book Chapter on Robotics in K-12 STEM Education: Published a book chapter on
integrating robotics into K-12 STEM education, and proposed an educational pipeline
model that relies on mentorship and collaborations between K-12 and higher education.
The book chapter highlights activities and programs to increase self-efficacy in
populations underrepresented in STEM (in particular, girls). 02/2012
Started the Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional: Botball is an international educational
robotics program that engages middle school and high school students in STEM through
the designing, building, and programming of autonomous robotics for a head-to-head
12 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV











May 21, 2015
competition. After only a year since its inception, the Greater Los Angeles Botball
Regional is now the largest Botball regional in the world. 01/2012–present
Instructor for the Botball Educational Robotics Program: Assisted in the design and
dissemination of Botball-related materials and activities. Provided educational tools and
face-to-face training to support robotics and STEM classroom instruction for the long
term. Served as an instructor in the Greater St. Louis, Greater San Diego, Greater Los
Angeles, Northern California, Oklahoma, and Qatar regions. 12/2005–present
NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Student and Teachers (ITEST) Grant: Coauthored with university and industry collaborators to investigate the effectiveness of
different mentoring strategies in increasing student self-efficacy in STEM. The USC
research effort is primarily targeted at underrepresented populations, specifically AfricanAmerican and Latino/Latina students. The grant has reached over 300 students and
mentors in the Greater Los Angeles area. 07/2011–present
National Robotics Initiative (NRI) K-12 Workshops: As part of the NRI grant, included a
strong K-12 outreach component, integrating sociable robotics research into a series of
STEM activities and workshops for kids. 07/2012–present
NSF Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) K-12 Workshops: As part of the SHB grant,
included a strong K-12 outreach component, integrating sociable robotics research into a
series of STEM activities and workshops. 12/2011–present
Workshop on Expressive Robotics–Motion and Emotion: Organized and taught an
educational workshop focused on sociable robotics. The workshop engages middle
school and high school students in STEM and the social sciences by having them
program robots to move in ways that express emotion. The workshop culminates in a
series of short films, in which the students author their own storyline and program to
make their robots tell a story through motion. 07/2011–present
Mentor for the USC Engineering for Health Academy (EHA): Worked with five
Latino/Latina students from Bravo Medical Magnet High School, engaging them in
STEM through hands-on robotics activities. 08/2011–present
Mentor for the USC Center for Engineering Diversity (CED): Mentored four
underrepresented students. Students were taught principles of computer science and
engineering, and applied them by programming an robot to autonomously follow a
person around a room while avoiding obstacles. 05/2011–08/2011
Mentor and Judge for the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC): Worked with
underrepresented middle school students at Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles in
FRC and FIRST LEGO League (FLL). FRC and FLL engage students in hands-on
mentor-based programs in STEM. 10/2008–present
Started the Robotics Club at Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy (BOGPA):
Served as a mentor for middle school students participating in the Botball Educational
Robotics Program. 08/2012–present
Started the Robotics Club at North Hollywood High School (NHHS): Served as a mentor
for high school students participating in the Botball Educational Robotics Program.
12/2010–present
USC Robotics Open House (part of National Robotics Week): Provided robotics demos,
presentations, and workshops for thousands of children and adults from the local
community. 04/2009–present
13 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV


May 21, 2015
Lab Tour Coordinator: Scheduled and guided weekly tours of the USC Robotics
Research Labs, including the Interaction Lab, the Robotic Embedded Systems
Laboratory, and the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab. 04/2009–present.
Started the Greater St. Louis Botball Regional: Botball is an international educational
robotics program that engages middle school and high school students in STEM through
the designing, building, and programming of autonomous robotics for a head-to-head
competition. 01/2008–present
SERVICE
Advisory Board/Committee Memberships
 Vice President, Los Angeles Robotics, 2014–2015.
 Committee Chair—Botball, Los Angeles Robotics, 2014–present.
 Committee Chair—Educational STEM Research, Los Angeles Robotics, 2014–present.
 Committee Chair—Social Media, Los Angeles Robotics, 2014–present.
 Committee—Educational Outreach, Los Angeles Robotics, 2014–present.
 Scientific Advisor, National Geographic, 2013–present.
 Scientific Committee, Practical Robotics Institute Austria (PRIA), 2012–present.
 Advisory Board Member, Robot Edutainment, 2011–present.
Society Memberships
 Founder/President, Socially Intelligent Robot Characters at USC (SIRC-USC), 2014–
present.
 Member, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2006–
present.
 Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2003–present.
 Member, Computer Association of SIUE (CAOS), ACM Chapter, 2003–present.
 Treasurer, Computer Association of SIUE (CAOS), ACM Chapter, 2004–2005.
 President, Computer Association of SIUE (CAOS), ACM Chapter, 2005–2007.
 Member, SIUE Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, 2007–2008.
Organizing/Program Committees
 Program Committee Member, 4th International Symposium on New Frontiers in HumanRobot Interaction, NF-HRI 2015.
 General Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional, Botball 2015.
 General Organizer, 2014 Global Conference on Educational Robotics, GCER 2014.
 General Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional, Botball 2014.
 Workshop Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional Workshop, Botball 2014.
 Workshop Co-organizer (with B. Kohan and C. Clabaugh), Expressive Robotics: Motion
and Emotion, GCER 2014.
 Workshop Co-organizer (with A. Atrash), "What Should I Do?": Making Smart Robot
Decisions On and Off the Game Board, GCER 2014.
 Program Committee Member, 3rd International Symposium on New Frontiers in HumanRobot Interaction, NF-HRI 2014.
14 of 15
Ross A. Mead CV












May 21, 2015
Program Committee Member, Mobile Assistive and Robotic Technology-based Systems,
MobiSys 2014.
Workshop Organizer, Expressive Robotics: Motion and Emotion, GCER 2013.
General Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional Tournament, Botball 2013.
Workshop Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional Workshop, Botball 2013.
Workshop Co-organizer (with A. Atrash), Probabilistic approaches for robot control in
human-robot interaction, HRI 2013.
Workshop Organizer, Expressive Robotics: Motion and Emotion, GCER 2012.
Workshop Co-organizer (with M. Salem), Speech and Gesture Production in Virtually
and Physically Embodied Conversational Agents, ICMI 2012.
General Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional, Botball 2012.
Workshop Organizer, Greater Los Angeles Botball Regional Workshop, Botball 2012.
Workshop Co-organizer (with D. Lu), Expressive Robotics: Motion and Emotion, GCER
2011.
General Co-organizer (with J. Weinberg), Greater St. Louis Botball Regional, Botball
2008.
Workshop Co-organizer (with J. Weinberg), Greater St. Louis Botball Regional
Workshop, Botball 2008.
Panels
 Panel Member, Human-Computer Interaction and Immersive Technology, Immersive
Education Initiative, 2014.
 Panel Member, What Features (Do/Would) Make Robot Competitions & Exhibitions
Compelling, Accessible, and Curricularly Relevant?, AAAI Spring Symposia 2007.
 Panel Chair, Leveraging Robot Competitions and Exhibitions, AAAI Spring Symposia
2007.
PERSONAL


Citizenship: US
Gender: Male
Last modified: May 21, 2015
15 of 15