Principal
Investigators
| Graduate Students | Staff | Visitors | Related |
Alumni | Founder
| Researchers

People working in the Leg Laboratory are legged locomotion enthusiasts of all stripes.
They represent several disciplines, including electrical engineering, mechanical
engineering, computer science, physics, biomechanics, and aero/astro.
- Gill Pratt (x101) is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
- Hugh Herr
(x102) is an Instructor of MIT/Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology and Harvard Medical
School.
- Jerry Pratt
(x104) studies the application of novel control techniques to legged robot locomotion. He and
Peter Dilworth designed and built Spring
Turkey for this work. Jerry finished designing and building Spring Flamingo in 1996 to
replace Spring Turkey.
- Daniel Paluska
(x109) is working on the new 3D biped, M2.
- Chee-Meng Chew (x111)is working on his
Mechanical Engineering PhD Degree on walking algorithm for bipedal robot.
- Jianjuen "John" Hu (x114)
- Andreas Hofmann(x109) studies simulation and control algorithms for
walking and jumping robots.
- David Robinson
(x107)studies Series Elastic Actuators for use in M2 and M4.
- Mike Wessler
(x104) studies motor control learning.
- Joanna Bryson (x104)
is
interested in "cognitive" control architectures. She is currently working on
wheeled robots in Edinburgh, Scotland, but will be returning to the Leg Lab in 1997 to
finish her PhD.
- Allen Parseghian
(x105) is
working on controls algorithms for the new 3D biped.
- Ben Krupp
(x110) is designing
M4, our new Quadruped.
- Chris Morse (x110) is a mechanical
engineering graduate student working on M4.
- Russ Tedrake is working on walking algorithms based on trajectory learning techniques for training neural networks.
Staff (and their telephone extension)
- Peter Dilworth
(x111) is
designing and building Trudy, a compact dinosaur-like robot.
- Gregory Huang (x107) is a postdoctoral associate working on models of
biped and quadruped locomotion, with applications to orthotics.
Visitors (and their telephone extension)
- Jonathan Hurst (x110) is a
student from CMU working at the Leg Lab over the summer.
- Matt Williamson
just finished his PhD working on environment-coupled control for Cog
's arms. His MSc was advised by Gill Pratt, and
he's co-authored some of our recent publications.

- Marc Raibert founded the Leg Laboratory in 1980 and directed it
through 1995. The Lab was originated at CMU when Marc was Associate Professor in Computer
Science and the Robotics Institute, and it moved to MIT in 1986 when Marc became Professor
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of the Artificial Intelligence
Lab. He is now president of the company he co-founded, Boston
Dynamics, Inc.
- Andrew Allen worked on his MEng
with the Recti-Blob II .
- Ann Torres worked on hexapod
simulation.
- Abbe Cohen was a UROP working on feet and ankles for the 2-d bipeds.
- Adam Crane did UROP work and his Senior Thesis in the Leg Lab, and helped out with
several other projects. Adam is currently hacking computer creatures at Boston Dynamics, Inc.
- Anthony J. Stentz
- Ben Brown was
the key mechanical designer for many of the Leg Lab robots. He is currently on the staff
at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
- Charles Francois made the uniroo run at 2 m/s. He is currently working on his PhD at INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France.
- Chris Wren did his Senior Thesis in
the Leg Lab using physics-based simulation to model a tree blowing in the wind. After
graduating and spending a year at BDI, Chris jointed the Media Lab as a graduate student.
- Clay Thompson worked on passive dynamic running.
- Daniell Hebert worked on the Zero Gravity machine.
- Dave Barrett was a mechanical designer in the Leg Lab for three years. He is currently
working on swimming robots in the MIT Department of Ocean Engineering.
- David Bailey worked on
Geekbot looking at smooth transfer of support for his M.S. Thesis. He is currently working
at Sarcos Research Corporation.
- Eugene Hastings
- Francis C. Wimberly
- Garth Zeglin
built the uniroo and first made it hop. He is currently a graduate student in Matt Mason's
lab at CMU.
- Jeff Koechling did his PhD thesis studying the limits of robot running speed. As part of
that work he programmed the planar biped to run fast: It set the world land speed record
for legged robots by running over 13 mph. Jeff is currently Chief Scientist at Boston Dynamics, Inc.
- Jeffrey Miller
- Jessica
Hodgins did her PhD thesis in the Leg Lab, working on foot placement for the planar
biped. In the course of doing her thesis, she programmed the planar biped to run up and
down a set of three steps. She also helped make the planar biped do front somersaults.
After her PhD thesis she did a one-year postdoc in the lab working on animated characters.
She is currently a professor in the College of Computing and a member of the Graphics
Visualization and Usability Center at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, where
she runs their Animation Lab.
- Jiping He
- Karl Leeser completed a
Master Thesis in the Leg Lab in 1996. He studyied the role of an articulated spine in
quadruped running, including construction and experiments with the Planar Quadruped.
- Karl Murphy did a Master's Thesis in the Lab when it was at CMU on coupled oscillation
in bounding.
- Kenneth Y. Goldberg
- Lance Borvansky did a Master's Thesis simulating ostrich running.
- Lee
Campbell worked on "On The Run", and helped with a variety of projects. He
is currently working at the MIT Media Lab on the taxonomy of classes of human motion using
vision.
- Martin Buehler was a postdoc in the lab, working on the quadruped and kangaroo robots.
He is currently a professor at the Centre for
Intelligent Machines , at McGill.
- Michael Chepponis was the key software guy for many of the early Leg Lab robots. He is
currently at California Wireless Inc. in Santa Clara.
- Michael Saginaw worked on electronics and force control.
- Mitchell London worked in the lab as an undergraduate at CMU. He is the founder of
Connect Software in Redmond, Washington,
- Robert Playter did his PhD Thesis in the Leg Lab in 1994. His thesis examined passive
methods for stabilizing gymnastic maneuvers. He programmed the 3D-Biped robot to do
somersaults. Rob now works at Boston Dynamics, Inc. He
was a champion collegiate gymnast in 1985, with one hell of a high bar routine: Part I(696K MPEG) , Part
II(986K MPEG).
- Robert Ringrose
finished his PhD thesis, Running
Without Active Control.
- Seth Holler worked on gymnastics simulations as a UROP.
- Steven E. Shreve
- Seshashayee S. Murthy
- Takashi Aoki spent 18 months in the Leg Lab as a visitor from Fujitsu. He worked on the
3D biped and on the Lab's early animation projects.
- Woojin Lee gave the monopod a
flexible foot.
- Zexiang Li was a postdoc in the lab, developing the theory of non-holonomic maneuvers.
The Leg Lab crew on the set of Rising Sun at 20th Century Fox. We ended up wearing
white lab coats in the movie. (From left: Charles Francois, Lee Campbell, Rob Playter,
Marc Raibert.)
Last Updated: July 28, 1999
) Copyright MIT Leg Laboratory. All Rights
Reserved.