Presidential Young Investigator Award

这一总统青年研究员奖是为了支持Donald博士在机器人运动规划方面的杰出工作。虽然他在耶鲁大学的本科学位是俄罗斯文学，但他很快就精通了麻省理工学院的高等数学和计算机科学。他的硕士项目产生了第一个实现的六自由度机械臂连续、无碰撞运动的规划系统--也有严格的完备性证明。然后，他将这项工作扩展到规划不确定领域中的错误检测和恢复--这是另一个有影响力的贡献。在康奈尔大学，唐纳德博士现在正在开发一门新的机器人学研究生课程，同时开始研究机器人最优运动的运动学近似算法。他也是一名出色的演讲者，能够以直截了当的方式交流复杂的想法，并显示出作为一名鼓舞人心的研究生导师的潜力。

This Presidential Young Investigator award is to support the exceptional work of Dr. Donald in robot motion planning. Although his undergraduate degree from Yale was in Russian Literature, he quickly became proficient in higher mathematics and computer science at MIT. His master's project produced the first implemented planning system for continuous, collision-free motion of robot arms with six degrees of freedom -- with a rigorous proof of completeness as well. He then extended this work to the planning of error detection and recovery in uncertain domains -- another influential contribution. At Cornell, Dr. Donald is now developing a new graduate course in robotics while initiating research in kinodynamic approximation algorithms for optimal robotic motion. He is also an excellent speaker, able to communicate complex ideas in a straightforward manner, and shows promise as an inspiring graduate advisor.