Marek Michalowski and Carol Reiley are roboticists who come from academic research backgrounds, currently work at Silicon Valley robotics companies, and have created DIY robotics projects for MAKE Magazine. They'll be talking about their experiences moving from academia to industry, working with robots used in health care (the Keepon autism research robot and the Da Vinci surgical robot), and being inspired by the tools, communities, and design ethos of the maker movement.
Dr. Marek Michalowski holds a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and is co-founder of BeatBots, a robot design company in San Francisco that creates socially interactive robots for research, entertainment, and art. BeatBots produces Keepon, a character that has taken the form of an autism research platform and later as a mass-market toy. Michalowski was born in Poland, grew up in New York, and studied Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University.
Carol Reiley is a PhD student in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. Through TinkerBelle Labs, she is interested in creating accessible robotic projects in the areas of health care, sustainability, and fashion. Reiley grew up in Vancouver, WA and studied Computer Engineering at Santa Clara University.