Robotics

Dr. Juan Rojas received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University (ranked 15th in the USA). He began studying robotics in the last year of his bachelor degree in 2001. Dr. Rojas has been studying robotics for 16 years. In his Master’s program, he had his first experience with a middleware system: the Intelligent Robotics Architecture (IMA). IMA was a similar program to ROS and was built by students in the Center for Intelligent Systems at Vanderbilt University. In 2011, Dr. Rojas performed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan. During his time in Japan, Dr. Rojas was exposed to Japan’s main middleware project: OpenRTM. Later in 2012, Dr. Rojas began as an Assistant Professor at the School of Software in Sun-Yat Sen University and began teaching a full ROS course in the Fall of 2012. He started what may be the first academic course on ROS in China. Since then Dr. Rojas has continued to teach a ROS course to undergraduate and graduate student every year. Along the way, Dr. Rojas has lead two translation projects for two ROS texts from English to Chinese. Namely: ROS By Example Volume 1 and 2 from Patrick Goble and are now available online in China under the names of ROS入门实例 and ROS进阶实例. Dr. Rojas has also organized training workshops including the 2017 ROS Summer School in East China Normal University in Shanghai (http://www.robotics.sei.ecnu.edu.cn/ros2017), along with the 2016 GDUT-Gaitech ROS Training Workshop, and the 2015 ROS Summer School hosted by Gaitech. Furthermore, Dr. Rojas actively uses ROS in his research, actively participating in the development of the code. All research code is made available as open source in Github and easily accessible through his research web page at: www.JuanRojas.net/research. Dr. Rojas has published more than 40 publications at international journals, conferences, and workshops.

Many teachers tell, some explain, a few demonstrate, and the best inspire. I hope to rigorously instruct students while at the same time inspire them to dream about what they can do with the skills learned. I believe in exposing students to significant societal problems to motivate the need; introducing them to personalities who have creatively and courageously changed history to motivate the plausibility and sow deep understanding in theory and practice to embolden them through the mastery of their subject. I seek to continually improve my courses through the constant use of best-practices in pedagogy: some examples include backward design for course design; or evaluation of knowledge transfer through various feedback methodologies with the students (formal and informal). I am an outgoing, caring, committed, consistent, and culturally and linguistically diverse individual with strong experience in tertiary education and with pedagogical training.

100 Young Talent Professor at Guangdong University of Technology

B.S. Vanderbilt University 1998-2002 M.S. Vanderbilt University 2002-2004 Ph.D. Vanderbilt University 2004-2009

Teaching Experience Guangdong University of Technology Guangzhou, China Associate Professor at the School of Electromechanical Eng. Aug 2015 to Present Sun Yat Sen University Guangzhou, China Assistant Professor at the School of Software Aug 2012 to Jul 2015 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology Tsukuba, Japan Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Robotics Center Sept 2011- Aug 2012 Sun-Yat Sen University International Undergraduate Program Guangzhou, China International Visiting Scholar at the School Engineering Sept. 2009 to Aug 2011 Taught Courses Guangdong University of Technology and Sun-Yat Sen University Robot Courses o Introduction to Robotics (U) 2012-present o Advanced Robot Development (G) 2014 o Robot Manipulation (G) 2015-present Programming o Intro to C++ (U) 2010/13/14/15 o Robot Operating System: ROS (U/G) 2013-present Math o Engineering Math (Calculus, Probability) (U) 2009/10 o Linear Algebra (U) 2010/11 Physics o Classical Physics and Electromagnetism (U) 2010/11 o Statics and Dynamics (U) 2009 Other o Technical Communication (U) 2010/13/14 Vanderbilt University (Teacher Assistant) o Introduction to Matlab (U) 2007 o Electromagnetism (U) 2003 o Digital Logic (U) 2002 *U = undergraduate course, G=graduate course Dr. Rojas was also varsity football player at Vanderbilt University. He enjoys culture, language, music, dancing, travel, and humanitarian work. Dr. Rojas speaks fluent English, Spanish, and French, has working knowledge of Mandarin, and basic skills in Japanese. Dr. Rojas enjoys spending time with students and support them in all aspects of life.