Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Computer Engineering Student Wins NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

 

Ames, Iowa – Computer engineering and human-computer interaction master’s degree student Shane Griffith joins three other students with ties to Iowa State University to win a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship this year. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program funds three years of study—up to $121,500—in master’s or doctoral degrees focusing on research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This year, 950 students nationwide received fellowship awards.

Griffith is studying developmental robots and hopes to play a role in research to create robots that can help humans do laborious tasks such as help people assemble large structures, prepare food for the elderly and disabled, and clean and organize homes.

“Developmental robotics is an embodied approach to creating artificial intelligence that suggests robots may be capable of learning as human infants learn,” Griffith said. “More specifically, I study how robots could learn to identify and use what humans call containers.”

Griffith said that in order for robots to work alongside humans in the future, they must have the capacity to learn and identify containers, but programming a robot with knowledge of all containers would be a laborious and menial task.

“The goal of my research is to identify several developmental trajectories that may enable a robot to learn and identify containers.”

Griffith’s major professor is Assistant Professor Alexander Stoytchev.

For more information on other Iowa State University students receiving 2009 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, see the College of Engineering’s news release.

Cory Simon, a 2008 computer engineering bachelor’s degree graduate, received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship honorable mention.

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