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Career Story
The human body is not the most efficient vehicle for undertaking the myriad of tasks incumbent on us every day. Nevertheless, the humanoid robot, rather than any other type of robot, stands at the center of attention among researchers and the public alike. I believe that our fascination with humanoid robots, emblematic of our primordial desire to replicate ourselves, stems from our existential loneliness. As entities awash in solitude, we seek to create companions with whom we can share the human experience. Struck by this thought as a child, my passion for robotics also started with the humanoid. Gradually, it has fleshed out and transformed into an endeavor to replicate human dexterity and cognitive intelligence in object manipulation on a robotic platform.
My research at the University of Michigan, where I consolidated artificial intelligence and control theory for robotic manipulation, brought me to a question: What would be a better way to build a dexterous robotic system that cooperates with people or substitutes their labor? Can we merge artificial intelligence and control theory in a way specifically tailored to bridge the gap between perception and hardware control in robotic systems? Despite the tremendous progress in artificial intelligence, perception and hardware control in robotics are still fairly disjointed, which confines robots to interact with a limited number of objects and scenarios. I believe that extracting tractable representations from complicated systems that have multi-modal sensing or high-order dynamics is integral to marrying machine learning and control theory for effective robotic manipulation. As a researcher tackling this problem, I would like to make robots more physically intelligent to interact with dynamic and heterogeneous environments and widely available to both public and private sectors.
Personal Story
When I was fourteen, my dad and I went on a backpacking trip to Shiraz, a small city in south-central Iran. As we were both fanatics of history and ancient civilizations, Shiraz was the tenth destination on our excavatory journey around the world. On a hot sunny morning, we set out to visit the historical sites of the Mesopotamian civilization, located miles out from the city center. But absent the advent of Google Maps, we struggled to find our way. Holding scrappy paper maps in our hands and scrambling to get hold of locals who barely spoke English, we stood in the steaming Persian heat, stranded. Then, a taxi came by.
With ample enthusiasm and body language, our taxi driver drove us around the city and introduced the history behind the monuments in Persepolis. Our taxi tour of the city was a panoramic dive into the history of Iran, as we cross-checked in our heads what we had learned from ancient historical documents. Our driver then invited us for dinner with his family. Munching on Koobideh Kabab, we learned about the Iranian family structure, educational system, and home-cooking, all of which gave us an intimate peek into everyday Iranian life.
Growing up as an avid traveler, I cultivated a joy for exploring new and foreign terrains with curiosity and an appreciation for the unanticipated discoveries along the way. I also learned that such discoveries often came from encounters with other minds. Over time, my knack for exploration encouraged me to venture abroad from South Korea and move to the United States for college to become a robotics researcher.