Biographies
The Honorable Gary Peters
United States Senator for Michigan
Senator Gary Peters has been honored to represent the State of Michigan in the U.S. Senate since 2015. He has focused on uniting our communities by fighting for the things we all agree on — a stronger economy, good-paying jobs, affordable health care, a secure retirement and an opportunity for everyone to succeed. In the 118th Congress, Gary serves as Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
Mr. Michael Cadieux
Director, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC)
Mr. Cadieux serves as the Director for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center, a position he has held since April 11, 2021. He leads a workforce of over 1,800 engineers, scientists, researches and support staff in delivering advanced technologies as required by the Army’s strategic priorities and support to its Cross Functional Teams. Mr. Cadieux also provides life cycle engineering solutions to the Army’s Ground Combat Systems and Combat Support & Combat Service Support PEOs, the Tank Automotive Life Cycle Management Command, and the broader Department of Defense.
In his capacity as the Director, Mr. Cadieux ensures the Ground Vehicle Systems Center is Forging the Future by developing world-class engineering talent in the areas of survivability and protection, autonomy and robotics, propulsion and mobility, electronics and power management, fuels and lubricants, and ground system design and optimization. The Ground Vehicle Systems Center is the Army’s primary organic engineering talent to develop the Next Generation Family of Combat Vehicles and thus deliver land dominance in the future fight.
Dr. Eric Michielssen
Associate Dean for Research, Louise Ganiard Professor of Engineering, University of Michigan
Eric Michielssen received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering (Summa Cum Laude) from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL, Belgium) in 1987, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1992. From 1992 to 2005, he served on the faculty at UIUC. In 2005, he joined the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, where he currently is the Louise Ganiard Johnson Professor of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He also serves as UM’s College of Engineering’s Associate Dean for Research.
Eric Michielssen received a Belgian American Educational Foundation Fellowship in 1988. He was the recipient of a 1995 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the 1998 Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Valued Service Award. In 1999, he was named 1999 URSI United States National Committee Henry G. Booker Fellow and selected as the recipient of the URSI Koga Gold Medal. In 2003 he served as a Scholar in the Tel Aviv University Sackler Center for Advanced Studies. He was the recipient of the 2014 IEEE AP-S Chen-To-Tai Distinguished Educator Award, the 2017 IEEE APS Sergei A. Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award, the 2020 IEEE APS Harrington-Mittra Computational Electromagnetics Award, the 2020 ACES Computational Electromagnetics Award, and the 2022 IEEE APS R.W.P. King Award. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of URSI Commission B.
Eric Michielssen authored or co-authored over 230 journal papers and book chapters and over 400 papers in conference proceedings. His research interests include all aspects of theoretical and applied computational electromagnetics. His research focuses on the development of fast frequency and time domain integral-equation-based techniques for analyzing electromagnetic phenomena, and the development of robust optimizers for the synthesis of electromagnetic/optical devices.
Dr. David Gorsich
Chief Scientist, U.S. Army GVSC
Dr. David J. Gorsich was selected for a Scientific and Professional (ST) position in January 2009 and serves as the Army’s Chief Scientist for Ground Vehicle Systems. His current research interests are vehicle design and mobility, system reliability, underbody blast modeling, terrain modeling, gaming engines and autonomy.
Prior to his current position, Gorsich served as the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center’s (TARDEC’s) Associate Director for Modeling and Simulation (M&S), from July 2003 to December 2008. He has served as the Director for Strategic Plans and Programs (G5), and the Team Leader for Robotics and Vehicle Intelligence. He also served in various other assignments at TARDEC, the Army Materiel Command, the Army Research Laboratory and for the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology). Before Federal Service, Gorsich was an electrical engineer with McGraw Commercial Equipment Corporation.
Gorsich was named Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 2020 and became Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in 2008. He has served on the SAE Technical Standards Board for a 3-year term, been the chair for the SAE International Standards Committee for Ground Vehicle Reliability and also on the SAE Board of Directors. He has received several Commander’s Coins, including from: the 30th Undersecretary of the Army Hon Westphal; the Army Chief Scientist Dr. Tom Killion; the Army Central Command GEN John Abizad; the Army Chief of Staff, GEN Peter Schoomaker, 2005; West Virginia National Guard, 2004; the Army TACOM MG William M. Lenaers; 2004; the TACOM MG N. Ross Thompson, 2003. Gorsich has received other numerous awards including the ASME 2020 Milliken Award, the SAE 2016 Arch T. Colwell Merit Award, the 2001 Detroit Federal Executive Board Award and the 1997 Army Research, Development and Acquisition Award, “Innovations in Ground Vehicle Signature Research.”
Dr. Gorsich is recognized in many professional organizations for his research accomplishments. Gorsich serves as an Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Terramechanics, Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Autonomous Vehicle Systems, the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Reliability and Safety, and as past Associate Editor for the Journal of Mechanical Design, 2009-2015. He is a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Chapter of Sigma Xi, and the Senior Executives Association, ST Chapter. Gorsich also serves as the U.S. Army representative on the NATO Science & Technology Applied Vehicle Technology panel. He also serves as an external advisor to the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, Clemson University’s international Center for Automotive Research, and to Sandia National Labs.
Dr. Gorsich has published more than 200 journal and conference articles including more than 60 peer reviewed journal articles. He has published in the following peer reviewed journals: Transactions of SAE; International Journal of Vehicle Design; Journal of Mechanical Design; Journal of Commercial Vehicles; Contemporary Mathematics; Computational Statistics and Data Analysis; Physical Review D; Society of Automotive Engineers; Journal of Multivariate Analysis; Journal of Electronic Imaging; Optical Engineering; Pattern Recognition Letters; Statistics and Computing; Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
Gorsich holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Lawrence Technological University. He holds an M.S. in applied mathematics from George Washington University and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from MIT with a focus on AI, autonomy, and spatial statistics.
Keynotes by:
COL Jeffery W. Jurand
Project Manager, Maneuver Combat Systems, Program Executive office Ground Combat Systems
COL Jeffery W. Jurand graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1998 and commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Armor. He initially served as both a Tank and Scout Platoon Leader in 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, TX. In November 2001 he deployed as an Assistant Operations Officer with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division to Kuwait as Operation Enduring Freedom began.
Following the Armor Captains Career Course, he then served as a Rear Detachment Commander and Assistant Operations Officer for 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, KS. In June 2005, he assumed command of C/1-34 AR. In May 2006, C/1-34 AR tripled in size, converted to a motorized company and COL Jurand commanded the company during its subsequent deployment in support of OIF 06-07. Upon re-deployment, he transitioned into the Army Acquisition Corps.
In 2008, COL Jurand was assigned to the Army Research Laboratory at Adelphi, MD and served as a counter-IED Project Team Lead. There he led project teams conducting limited development and experimentation with both developmental and off-the-shelf technology and led initial fielding efforts in Afghanistan in support of Joint IED Defeat Organization’s (JIEDDO) efforts. In 2010 he was reassigned to Warren, MI where he served as an Assistant Product Manager for Mobility and Power Generation Systems in the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) Program. In 2013 he was nominated and selected for an assignment with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, NC. There he served as both a Product Director for Sensitive Activities and Chief of Requirements. COL Jurand assumed responsibilities as Product Manager, Heavy Tactical Vehicles in June 2016. In June 2020, COL Jurand was reassigned to the Pentagon and served as the Executive Officer to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASAALT).
COL Jurand has a B.S. in Engineering Science from Vanderbilt University and an MS.Eng in Project Management from University of Maryland, College Park. He attended the U.S. Army War College Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, PA in 2019-2020 where he studied cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Dr. Mario Santillo
Technical Leader for Robotics & Automation, Ford Motor Company
Dr. Santillo is a technical leader who applies broad research and industry experience to develop and drive the vision for next-generation technologies. He is the champion for Ford’s vision on robotics and automation research. His team develops advanced robotics technologies towards package-delivery automation and manufacturing’s Factory of Tomorrow vision. Dr. Santillo is led the development of the Ford Motor Company Robotics Building at the University of Michigan and continue to foster and grow our collaboration between industry and academia.
Dr. Santillo’s specialties include Robotics, Control Techniques (e.g., Adaptive Control, Nonlinear Control, Control Barrier Functions, Model-Predictive Control), and Sensing, Estimation and Control for Automotive and Aerospace Systems.
Dr. Paramsothy Jayakumar
Senior Technical Expert, Analytics, U.S. Army GVSC
Dr. Paramsothy Jayakumar is a Senior Technical Expert in Analytics at U.S. Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC). Prior to joining GVSC, he worked at Ford Motor Company and BAE Systems. Dr. Jayakumar is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is also an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Autonomous Vehicles and Systems, and Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Vehicle Performance and the ISTVS Journal of Terramechanics. He led a NATO S&T Team that developed the Next-Generation NATO Reference Mobility Model (NG-NRMM) which has now been made the NATO and the U.S. Army Standard.
Dr. Jayakumar has received the DoD Laboratory Scientist of the Quarter Award, NATO Applied Vehicle Technology Panel Excellence Awards, SAE Arch T. Colwell Cooperative Engineering Medal, SAE James M. Crawford Technical Standards Board Outstanding Achievement Award, BAE Systems Chairman’s Award, and NDIA GVSETS Best Paper Awards. He has published over 250 papers in peer-reviewed literature. Dr. Jayakumar received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Caltech, and B.Sc. Eng. (Hons, First Class) from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
Panelists:
Dr. Byron Boots
Amazon Professor of Machine Learning, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington
Byron Boots is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the University of Washington where he directs the UW Robot Learning Laboratory. Byron has previously served as co-chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Robot Learning, and is looking forward to serving as the co-general chair for the Conference on Robot Learning in 2023. He has received several awards including “Best Paper” Awards from ICML, AISTATS, RSS, and IJRR and is also the recipient of the RSS Early Career Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the Outstanding Junior Faculty Research Award from the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. Byron received his PhD from the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Cinzia Cirillo
Interim Director, Maryland Transportation Institute, Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland
Cinzia Cirillo, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland (UMD), is interim director of the Maryland Transportation Institute, a UMD-based hub that brings together researchers from multiple fields to tackle today’s most pressing transportation challenges. An expert on travel behavior and a strong proponent of interdisciplinary collaboration, Dr. Cirillo’s work spans areas such as discrete choice analysis, advanced transportation demand modeling, large-scale model systems, value of time studies, data collection and analytics, survey design, transportation and energy, new technology vehicles, and environmental impacts. She is currently associate chair of graduate programs at the UMD CEE department. She received her PhD in Transportation Engineering from the University of Torino.
Dr. Matthew Johnson-Roberson
Director of the Robotics Institute, Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Matthew Johnson-Roberson is Director of the Robotics Institute and Professor of Computer Science in the in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He previously co-directed the UM Ford Center for Autonomous Vehicles (FCAV) and he founded and leads the DROP (Deep Robot Optical Perception) Lab, which researches 3D reconstruction, segmentation, data mining, and visualization. He received a PhD from the University of Sydney and he has held prior postdoctoral appointments with the Centre for Autonomous Systems - CAS at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney.