This Presidential Young Investigator award is to support the exceptional work of Dr. Donald in robot motion planning. Although his undergraduate degree from Yale was in Russian Literature, he quickly became proficient in higher mathematics and computer science at MIT. His master's project produced the first implemented planning system for continuous, collision-free motion of robot arms with six degrees of freedom -- with a rigorous proof of completeness as well. He then extended this work to the planning of error detection and recovery in uncertain domains -- another influential contribution. At Cornell, Dr. Donald is now developing a new graduate course in robotics while initiating research in kinodynamic approximation algorithms for optimal robotic motion. He is also an excellent speaker, able to communicate complex ideas in a straightforward manner, and shows promise as an inspiring graduate advisor.
