OSRF is pleased to welcome Louise Penna Poubel, Tashwin Khurana, Binnur Görer and Ana Marian Pedro, our interns for the Outreach Program for Women!

Louise got her B.S. in Electromechanical engineering from Chiba University in 2011 and her double M.S. from the European Master in Advanced Robotics (EMARO) at Warsaw University of Technology and Ecole Centrale de Nantes in 2013. Her masters research focused on whole-body online imitation of human motion by humanoid robots, using the Nao robot and the Kinect sensor. At OSRF, she will be adapting the WebGL interface of Gazebo to work on mobile devices. In her free time, she enjoys 3D printing, puzzles, traveling and extreme sports.

Louise’s blog: http://myshumi.net/

Tashwin is pursuing a Master’s in Computer Science at Lehigh University. She has been working at the VADER lab (Vision, Assistive Devices, and Experimental Robotics Laboratory) with Prof. Dr. John Spletzer for over a year and loving every minute of it! Tashwin has been focusing on the Lehigh Mapping Trike project, which will be used as a means to construct large-scale, three-dimensional maps in outdoor pedestrian zones. As an OPW intern, Tashwin will be building an Open Street Maps (OSM) API plugin for the Gazebo Simulator.

Tashwin’s blog: http://khuranatashwin.wordpress.com

Binnur is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Computer Engineering, Boğaziçi University. She has recently completed her MSc. thesis which is titled “Developing a Fitness Coach Robot for Elderly People in Assisted Living Environments”. Binnur’s supervisor is H. Levent Akin. She is a member of the Robotics Research Group and the Cerberus RoboCup Standard Platform League Team. Binnur’s research focuses on social robotics. As an OPW intern, she aims to integrate an SDF editor into Gazebo. This contribution will allow users to make changes in the current model while the simulator is running.

Binnur’s blog: http://robot.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~binnur/

Ana Pedro is an M.Sc. Computer Science Candidate and a member of the Center for Automation Research in De La Salle University, Manila. She is currently working on her thesis on mobile robot localization and is interested in developing robotic applications for children and education. Ana Pedro will be working on an educational challenge using CloudSim, ROS and Gazebo.

Ana Pedro’s blog: http://thelittlerobotblogs.wordpress.com

We’re excited to see the work that Louise, Tashwin, Binnur and Ana Pedro will be doing over the next few months. Check their blogs often to follow along with their experiences and contributions!