The Guardian recently profiled Anthony Levandowski, CA A ’02, as “one of the most influential engineers behind self-driving vehicles.” According to the article, Levandowski’s obsession with robotics began with a 2004 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contest after completing his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and operations at UC Berkeley. Since his first efforts at developing autonomous vehicles, he has founded Anthony’s Robots, 510 Systems, and most recently Otto.
Otto, a startup dedicated to giving truckers the freedom to take naps during long distance highway drives, was recently bought by Uber and Levandowski is now reporting directly to Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick. Levandowski also previously worked for Google, where he was responsible for the creation of the Pribot, self-driving Toyota Prius vehicles “with one of the first spinning lidar laser ranging units, and the first ever to drive on public roads.”
Τ
New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology undergraduate student Danielle Richards, NM G 2017, was profiled for her commitment to helping others. Richards is majoring in chemical engineering at Tech, started working as a learning coach in the Office of Student Learning as a sophomore, participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates at Northwestern University, and was named a 2016-17 TBP Scholar.
She serves as an officer for local chapters of AIChE, SWE, and as corresponding secretary of the New Mexico Gamma Chapter of Tau Beta Pi. Her future plans include pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, a post-doc assignment, and becoming a professor. Click here to read the article for more on her activities and accomplishments.
Β
Jim Schwoebel, GA A ’13, is an engineer and CEO of NeuroLex Diagnostics, a company that “wants to make a tool for primary-care doctors to screen their patients for schizophrenia.” Using an AI model developed by a team of researchers in 2015, NeuroLex’s product would record patients during an appointment and then search a transcript of the patient’s speech for linguistic clues of psychosis.
Schwoebel is co-founder and partner of NeuroLaunch, a leading accelerator program for neuroscience start-ups. For his work, he was awarded the Alvin M. Ferst Leadership and Entrepreneurship Award in 2014. Schwoebel holds a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech. Read the article from The Atlantic for more details on the schizophrenia screener and the personal connection Schwoebel has with this work.
Π
Tau Beta Pi 