Jairo Y. Maldonado-Contreras

I am an first-year Robotics Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech. I received my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University Long Beach in May 2019. My research interests lie at the intersection of Robotics and Rehabilitation. Leveraging wearable robots (i.e., prostheses and exoskeletons) to restore or augment human capabilities is pretty awesome. I hope to utilize my graduate studies to help bridge the gap between human and machine by advancing intent recognition algorithms.

Another passion of mine is community outreach. My nontraditional upbringing has taught me the importance of mentorship. I aspire to uplift those who may not have the same opportunities as others.

Most of my free time is spent playing the beautiful game of soccer and gaining new technical skills relevant to the field of robotics. There is always something exciting to learn in the field of Robotics!

Recent Updates

  • Apr. 2020 - Earned the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and Shell First Generation Graduate Fellowship
  • May 2019 - Named CSU Long Beach's Outstanding Engineering Graduate
  • Apr. 2019 - Featured on the CSU Long Beach College of Engineering website
  • Feb. 2019 - Earned the GEM, NSF ARMS, and Goizueta Fellowships to purse my doctoral degree

    • Projects

    Graduate Researcher (2019 - 2024)

    Topic: TBD

    Lab: Exoskeleton and Prosthetic Intelligent Controls Laboratory
  • Ph.D. Major: Robotics
  • Ph.D. Minor: Computer Science
  • Core Areas of Study: Controls, Mechanics, and Artificial Intelligence

    • Robotics Intern (Jun. 2019 - Present)

    Topics: CLASSIFIED

    Lab: Group 77 - Rapid Prototyping
  • Constructing a testing platform of sensors to develop Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms
  • Interfacing with a variety of autonomy-enabling sensors using the Robot Operating System (ROS), Gazebo, and Rviz
  • Designing components for a laser-communicating cubesat and ground station

    • Robotics Intern (Sep. 2018 - May. 2019)

    Topic: DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge

    Lab: Section 347 - Mobility and Robotic Systems
  • Designed electromechanical components dedicated to the rapid-prototyping of hybrid ground-aerial vehicles
  • Developed a 1-DOF gimbal for attitude control of a mounted camera
  • Manufactured communication node-dropping mechanisms for UAVs and UGVs

    • Research Intern (Jun. 2018 - Aug. 2018)

    Topic: Building Reduced-Scale Supernumerary Robotic Limbs

    Lab: d'Arbeloff Laboratory
  • Fabricated a pair of 2-DOF robotic limbs using Solidworks, based on functional requirements and constraints
  • Implemented open-loop velocity control of limbs
  • Conducted stress analyses on the robotic limbs to validate hand-calculated stiffness models

    • Research Intern (Jun. 2017 - Aug. 2017)

    Topic: Monitoring Community Mobility of Persons with Stroke Using Smartphone Technology

    Lab: Center for Bionic Medicine
  • Implemented K-means clustering methods to quantify GPS data of participants
  • Examined relationships between mobility parameters and in-lab evaluations for possible predictors of community mobility
  • Assessed physical evaluations on post-stroke patients, while maximizing patient confortability and safety

    • Research Fellow (Aug. 2015 - Dec. 2018)

    Topic: Propriocepitve Improvements of Lower-Limb Amputees Under Training with a Vibrotactile Device

    Lab: Robotics and Interactive Systems Engineering Laboratory
  • Designed a vibrotactile device to fit most passive lower-limb prostheses
  • Quantified user response times to perturbations imposed by the vibrotactile device during ambulation
  • Implemented real-time knee flexion angle and gait phase detection algorithms based on inertial measurement unit data

    • Contact

    Email: jairoymc@gatech.edu

    Github: https://github.com/jairoymc/

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jairo-maldonado-contreras/