Experience
since Fall 2007
Berkeley DRIVE Lab, UC Berkeley - Graduate Student Researcher (GSR)
- Established a new lab for advanced driver assistance (ADAS), sensing and control systems for automobiles.
- Identified verification of ADAS as key research problem and led the verification reading and research group.
- Co-managed budget and equipment worth several hundred thousand dollars and established industry relations.
1.2007 - 8.2007
Robotics and Intelligent Machines Lab, UC Berkeley - Development Engineer
- Developed object detection, classification and tracking algorithms using low-cost and advanced sensors on a FPGA-based computing platform for navigation of autonomous ground vehicles in urban environments.
since 2000
Freelancer - IT Trainings, Programming, Consulting, Webmastering and Webdesign
- Achieved top performance evaluations for conducting various vocational IT trainings, including software engineering, system administration, webmastering and webdesign, operating systems, back office, etc.
- Provided IT infrastructure, training and web-based platforms for non-profit organizations pro bono.
2007
Sydney-Berkeley Driving Team (DARPA Urban Challenge entry), Berkeley, CA - Group Leader
- Headed the Berkeley 'Sensors & Navigation' sub-group and was promoted in June to Berkeley team leader in this transatlantic collaboration. Specialized in 3D-LIDAR fused with visible light and thermal IR vision.
3.2006 - 8.2006
Information and Communication University (ICU), Daejeon, South-Korea - Visiting Scholar
- Invited to co-found a robotics lab for this new university. Set up the lab infrastructure, built several autonomous ground vehicles (AGV) and taught dozens of students the usage and further development strategies.
- Held guest lectures in graduate class 'Advanced topics in robotics', and supported class projects.
- Researched on interplay between ground robotics and aerial robotics, developed and implemented a real-time road sign detection, and investigated the use of next-generation cell phones in mobile autonomous robotics.
2.2004 - 2.2006
Team Cyberrider (DARPA Grand Challenge entry), Irvine, CA - Team Member
- 2004 Race: Mono and stereo vision for desert road and obstacle detection, distributed real-time computing.
- 2005 Race: 3D Ladar data gathering from 2D laser scanners and distributed real-time sensor fusion.
10.2005 - 2.2006
DREAM Laboratories, University of California (UCI), Irvine, CA - Visiting Scholar
- Demonstrated real-time remote-control of a small vehicle via the 90 mile optical network of CalIT2.
- Researched on real-time sensor fusion, path planning and navigation for small-scale autonomous vehicles.
5.2005 - 6.2005
Media System Lab, YONSEI University, Seoul, South Korea - Visiting Scholar
- Assisted research on sensor fusion for autonomous driving, FPGA-based stereo vision, rapid development of distributed real-time software for mobile embedded systems, and visualization of large data sets.
2.2004 - 12.2004
DREAM Lab, Univ. of California Irvine, in co-op. with C-LAB, Univ. of Paderborn/ SIEMENS, Germany -
Junior Specialist on Embedded Systems and Autonomous Robotics/ Graduate Research Assistant
- Two research semesters spent at UCI working on autonomous behavior, distributed real-time computing, real-time mono & stereo vision, systems integration etc. targeting autonomous ground vehicles.
- Admin for Windows XP/2003, RedHat Linux, Email (Exchange, fetchmail/ sendmail), Web server (IIS/Apache).
7.2002 - 9.2003
Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC2), University of Paderborn, Germany - Web Guru
- Initiated and executed a complete redesign of the PC2's vast (6000+ files) and heterogenous web site, and developed a custom CMS based on a virtualized LAMP stack featuring automatic page generation and user data forms that was quickly adopted by several other research groups in the university. (9.5h/week)
5.2000 - 6.2002
Wincor Nixdorf, CIO (CAx Administration), Paderborn, Germany - CAD Macro Programmer
- Spearheaded the move from SGI workstations to Windows PCs achieving a four-fold hardware cost reduction.
- Redesigned and coded optimized multi-lingual macros to speed-up tedious data-entry and drawing tasks.
- Automated workflow from accepting electronic drawings to incorporation into in-house PDMS. (12h/week)
2.2000 - 5.2000
A.V. Wehling, Bielefeld, Germany (Book wholesale) - IT Administrator
- Streamlined the installation of a custom booking software tool along with hardware at bookstores and trained booksellers and sales people in its use. Provided in-house IT administration, phone and on-the-spot support.
7.1999 - 9.1999
Siemens AG, Paderborn, Germany - Intern
- Outperformed paid trainees in this unpaid internship geared towards learning basic electrical and mechanical skills such as soldering, filing, folding etc. and thus was promoted group leader to avoid summer closure.
4.1997
Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., Lippstadt, Germany (Tier-1 automotive supplier) - Intern
- Two week internship in the electrical development department as first high-school student ever. Designed and simulated a mock-up model of a CAN-interfaced device used in car shows using PSpice and soldered it.
Skills
- Soft Skills: Strong analytical, organizational, communication, presentation, motivation and interpersonal skills.
Cultivated, well-rounded, well-traveled, open-minded, dependable, conscientious - yet creative.
- Human Languages: German (native), English (excellent), French (intermediate), Latin, Spanish (beginning)
- Computer Languages: C/C++, CUDA, Java, UML, Matlab, R, Php, Html/Css, Sql, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Pascal ...
- Computer Skills: Extensive Office, BackOffice and Productivity knowledge, both commercial and open source.
- Operating Systems: Unix (FreeBSD, [Open]Solaris, IRIX), Linux (Gentoo, Debian, Suse, RedHat, Fedora, [K]Ubuntu), Mac OS X, Dos, Windows (1.0 - 7beta; NT4 SP1 - 2003 Server), VMware ESXi a.o.
Education
since Fall 2007
University of California, Berkeley - GPA: 3.9/4.0
- Computer Science graduate student under the supervision of Dean S. Shankar Sastry.
- Major: Artificial Intelligence (GPA: 4.0/4.0). Minors: Robotics & Control, Management of Technology.
- Concurrent enrollment Spring 2007 (UC Berkeley Extension, 6 units, GPA 4.0/4.0).
Fall 1999 - Spring 2005
University of Paderborn, Germany
- Graduated as a "Diplom Informatiker", German equivalent of a Master of Science in Computer Engineering.
- Majors: Embedded Systems and Software Engineering (CS), Control- and Systems Engineering (EE).
- Diploma thesis: "Distributed Real-Time Computing in Autonomous Robotic Environments Utilizing Time-Triggered Message-Triggered Objects (TMOs)", chosen out of twenty applicants to write thesis at UC Irvine.
- Three years student representative in the EE department, two years on the RoboCup soccer robot team.
References:
- Excellent references available upon request.