Presidential Young Investigator Award

这个总统青年研究员奖是为了支持唐纳德博士在机器人运动规划方面的杰出工作。虽然他在耶鲁大学获得的本科学位是俄罗斯文学，但他在麻省理工学院很快就精通了高等数学和计算机科学。他的硕士项目产生了第一个实现六自由度机器人手臂连续无碰撞运动的规划系统，并且具有严格的完整性证明。然后，他将这项工作扩展到不确定领域的错误检测和恢复计划——这是另一个有影响力的贡献。在康奈尔大学，唐纳德博士目前正在开发一门新的机器人研究生课程，同时开始研究最佳机器人运动的运动学近似算法。他也是一名优秀的演讲者，能够以直截了当的方式传达复杂的想法，并有望成为一名鼓舞人心的研究生导师。

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.