Wow, that was Busy
As one might expect, the second semester of my PhD journey was incredibly busy and complicated. Some might even say I shouldn’t have expected that, I should have just known it to be true and weathered the storm, continuing on as if everything was normal and not busy or stressful at all. But alas, that is not how I handle education or ambition––this semester was a gauntlet to get through but I am pleased to announce I came out the other side in one piece.
Robotics Qualifying Exam
A small background for the uninitiated, the Comprehensive Qualifying Exam (CQE) in the UM Robotics Department is the preliminary exam taken before a student can advance to Candidacy. My program consists only of a oral presentation (30 minutes, 60 minutes Q&A) on our current research progress where we are assessed on our ability to demonstrate and present research objectives and future work. It would be an understatement to say the process for preparing for this exam was complicated and challenging, however, all moving parts did coalesence into an hour and a half period, where I successfully presented my research and answered my comittee’s questions. And I am excited to officially announced that I have passed (yay!) and am now an official PhD canidate (double yay!).
This milestone will permit me to dedicate much more of my time towards working on research, which I’m very much looking forward to. Getting to this point would not have been possible without the support of the people around me, including my lab members and friends who endured me practicing many many times to feel confident enough for the exam. If you didn’t know, it does indeed take a village to support a PhD student. Grateful to all of them.
Spring 2026 as a Semster
Although the CQE did eat up a lot of my time, it is not ALL I did this semester. I was the Graduate Student Instructor for Leia’s class ROB 435/IOE 535, Quantifying Human Motion through Wearable Sensors. This was actually my third time GSI-ing at Michigan at all, but my first time doing it for a class I’d actually taken before. While teaching isn’t my passion, it was rewarding to revisit this class and help support students throughout it. I think these were some of my most busy office hours yet.
I also, as you might expect, fully launched my research study to have some pilot results for my exam. I’ve yet to make a dedicated post about this first study of my research, but I expect to be cataloging that sometime this summer, so once it’s completed, look for a hyperlink here. As a short summary in the meantime, we’re looking to quantify decisions made by occupational therapists to inform on the design of an at-home rehabilitation system which can deliver autonomous exercise feedback. If that sounds like a lot of words, it’s because it is––be on the look out for better words in my future conference paper published on this topic.
We’re still looking to recruit some OT’s so if you know anyone that might fit the criteria, please contact me! It’d be much appreciated.
Draper Scholars Program
Last, but most certainly not least, I was formally extended an offer from Draper through the Draper Scholars Program! This work is on a project in a wildly differing field (hint: think space) that I’m planning on working on learning all about this summer. I’d be advised by Leia’s first ever PhD student, Dr. Sherrie Holden and a fellow Draper collaborator Dr. Tristan Endsley to build out design constraints and risk assessment plans for autonomous decisions (hint: once again, think ✨space✨). Although the field is different, both Leia and I are excited to work this study into my general thesis about learning the best ways to turn human-decision making into quantifiable metrics to use as a basis for autonomy. More updates to come on that project once we have a better idea on the scope and what exactly we’re planning on accomplishing.
And that’s all the updates I have today. The summer is looking to be varied in projects and involved in terms of what I’ll be doing (from data collection to literature search). Thanks for following along this far!