IHMC is purchasing a new NovaSeq X Plus genetic sequencing device that will help elevate the Institute’s footprint as a regional hub of excellence in human performance research.  IHMC will be among the first labs in the country to have the newest version of this device, which allows for next-generation sequencing capacity to better understand genetics, genomics, epigenetics, and transcriptomics.   “The information contained in our genes and how they are activated and regulated is extremely important in understanding risks of disease, along with differences between individuals and the responses of each person to a treatment or exposure to stress,” says… Read More

Everyone likes company — and IHMC is no exception.   More than 350 people came through our doors for 2023’s Robotics Open House. The family-friendly event allowed IHMC researchers to share some of what they do with students and families.  We had a great time showcasing our work in robotics, virtual reality experiences, human performance research projects, data visualization, and more. If you couldn’t be there, here’s a little of what you missed.  For students to get an IHMC experience, we have two upcoming opportunities: Science Saturday on April 22 for students in grades 3-6, and summer Robotics Camp June 5-8… Read More

IHMC received nearly $4 million in grant funding as a subaward to SRI International’s “PROTEUS: Prototype Testing environment for User Situation awareness.”   PROTEUS is a rapidly reconfigurable human-machine interface (HMI) testing environment for early and cost-effective testing of human machine prototypes, specifically those designed to improve operator situation awareness and support agile adaptation to off-nominal situations.  The PROTEUS Team is a project the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is a collaboration between SRI International (prime, headquartered in Menlo Park, CA), IHMC, and SkillMil, Inc., (Menlo Park, CA). IHMC’s effort is led by Senior Research Scientist Dr. Anil Raj.  PROTEUS… Read More

It’s time to get your peek behind the curtain.   On April 6, Florida IHMC is inviting the public to meet Nadia, Valkyrie, Eva, Mini Cheetah, Wasp and the humans behind them in celebration of National Robotics Week.  From 3 to 7 p.m. on April 6, 2023, researchers at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition will welcome the public and students for tours, walk-throughs and inspiration on the Pensacola campus on South Alcaniz Street. The last tour begins at 7 p.m.  The family-friendly event encourages scientific discovery through hands-on activities, challenges, and demonstrations while providing the opportunity to learn about… Read More

PENSACOLA — Recently, the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition hosted a gathering of international experts in spatial disorientation, the leading cause of deadly mishaps in military and commercial aviation.   Over three days in late March, 87 members of the Spatial Orientation Modeling Expert (SOME) Workgroup shared the latest techniques to model spatial disorientation mishaps and to showcase the latest developments designed to mitigate the risk. The hope is to craft recommendations for future research on the model and designs of next-generation aerospace vehicles to improve pilot situation awareness and counter spatial disorientation.   The Principal Investigator from IHMC… Read More

STEM-Talk episode 150 featuring termite biologist Dr. Barbra Thorne is now available on IHMC’s website as well as popular podcast apps. In her interview, Barbara talks about the invasive conehead species, a Central and South American termite that has invaded South Florida. Barbara is a research professor and professor emerita in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland. Since 2012 she has served as the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services science advisor on the state’s Conehead Termite Program. She also chairs the National Scientific Advisory Committee for the Conehead Termite Program. Barbara’s research focuses on the… Read More

Summer Robotics Camp is one of IHMC’s signature community outreach efforts — and it’s almost here. Registration opens this week for the summer 2023 sessions. Visit https://www.ihmc.us/life/robotics-camp/ to register.  “Our students always enjoy getting to know likeminded students and spending four days learning to program Lego robots and seeing them respond to their commands,” said Dr. Ursula Schwuttke, director of educational outreach for IHMC’s Pensacola and Ocala campuses.  Robotics camp takes place in June 2023 and offers students the chance to learn the basics of robotics, coding, and problem-solving. Camp is in two sessions: June 5-8 for rising eighth graders;… Read More

A partnership between Space Florida and the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has been quietly growing. Most recently, Space Florida contributed $2 million in support of that collaboration.   When construction of IHMC’s newest research building is completed in the summer of 2024, Space Florida will have office space in the new facility — additional evidence of how closely the two entities intend to work together.  “Among the topics our human performance team is exploring is how humans respond both physically and cognitively to stress and how we perform in extreme environments,” said IHMC Founder and CEO Dr. Ken… Read More

Dr. Karen Wooley wants to find the next iteration of sustainable, biodegradable plastics. She’s looking to the insect world for part of the answer.   Wooley, who holds the W. T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry and is a University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University, spoke as part of the Smart Lecture series at IHMC. If you couldn’t be with us in person, watch her lecture here.  Her lecture shared the latest efforts to support the commercial translation of carbohydrate-derived degradable plastics to harvesting of building blocks from insect feedstocks.   As scaled-up production of biomass-based biodegradable polymers grows, focus has turned… Read More

Dr. Jeff Volek has been investigating how humans adapt to ketogenic and carbohydrate-restricted diets for 30 years.    On his return to STEM-Talk — available on our website and wherever you enjoy podcasts— Jeff talks about a growing accumulation of studies supporting a ketogenic diet to improve metabolic health, as well as research confirming the relative safety of dietary fat.  Jeff is a professor in the Department of Human Sciences at Ohio State University. He is known for his research on the clinical application of ketogenic diets in the management of insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes. His first STEM-Talk appearance was… Read More

People are living longer, but those longer years are often marred by multiple chronic diseases — and the exploding cost of managing those conditions — in the final and least productive years of life.   In the first IHMC Evening Lecture of 2023, Dr. Alexander Fleming talked about efforts to understand how we can extend our productive, healthy years — a concept he calls healthy longevity. If you couldn’t be with us in person, you can still learn from Dr. Fleming with our video recap. Watch it here.  Fleming is a former head of clinical review at the U.S. Food and… Read More

The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition broke ground today on a new $30 million project in downtown Pensacola, setting up the next chapter in the research facility’s journey of innovation and collaboration.  The IHMC Healthspan, Resilience and Performance complex will be a leading-edge lab and office building that will create a research hub, based in Northwest Florida, for advancing human healthspan, resilience, and performance with the potential to lead the field. The facility is an investment in the intellectual capital of Northwest Florida, creating a hub of excellence in healthspan, resilience, and performance research that will draw leading… Read More

Ed Weiler wanted to be among NASA’s first scientist astronaut. He made it through several rounds of selection, but in the end, he wasn’t chosen.   “Then I gave up and was happy to be an astronomer,” Weiler says.   Fortunately, he had another path that brought him to NASA. Indeed, he went on to a 33-year career at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including 20 years as chief scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, the forerunner of the James Webb.  In STEM-Talk Episode 147, available now on IHMC’s website and wherever you listen to podcasts, Dr. Ed Weiler talks about… Read More

The IHMC’s robotics team recently was lauded at one of the premier conferences in their field.  The team of Duncan Calvert, Bhavyansh Mishra, Stephen McCrory, Sylvain Bertrand, Robert Griffin, and Jerry Pratt won the Best Paper award at the International Conference on Humanoid Robots 2022 conference in November in Okinawa, Japan.  The conference is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Robotics and Automation Society. The paper is titled “A Fast, Autonomous, Bipedal Walking Behavior Over Rapid Regions.” It is linked here. The publication highlights a newly constructed behavior control system for achieving fast, autonomous, bipedal walking,… Read More

The joy is in discovery.  That’s what Nicole Esposito sees at Science Saturdays, IHMC’s weekend science enrichment series. She is an IHMC Research Associate who works in the robotics lab at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola. The team she is part of has an international reputation for excellence and innovation.  But Science Saturdays connects her to a larger purpose.   “It’s always a joy to watch how quickly these kids learn,” she said. “It’s always fun to talk about a topic you enjoy, but doing so with these groups of kids, who are so eager and ready… Read More

IHMC Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist Dr. James Allen has earned another accolade in his long and distinguished career in natural language understanding and research. Allen in December 2022 was named a fellow by the Association for Computational Linguistics. He was one of eight leaders in the field to be so recognized by ACL, a leading professional organization in the study of computational language processing — a field Allen has helped pioneer. The nominating committee recognized Allen, who is also a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester where he has been on the faculty since 1978, “for significant… Read More

IHMC’s 2023 Evening Lecture series is kicking off this month with speakers highlighting healthy longevity and progress in exoskeleton research. Both IHMC campuses — Pensacola and Ocala — are opening the free public lecture series with January lectures by Dr. Alexander Fleming and Dr. Gwen Bryan. How can you increase healthy longevity beyond common senses measures such as good nutrition and physical activity? That’s the subject that Fleming will explore on Jan. 25 in Pensacola. Fleming’s talk, “Targeting Healthy Longevity—Why, How, and When Will We Have the Means of Living Longer and Healthier,” is the first of the 2023 season… Read More

We walk every day, so we think it’s an easy thing to do. But when we try to recreate it with an exoskeleton in the lab, the truth reveals how complex and challenging it is. That’s the puzzle that Dr. Gwen Bryan is working to solve as part of the exoskeleton team at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Episode 147 of “STEM-Talk” features a conversation with Bryan, an IHMC Research Scientist who investigates wearable robotic devices aimed at augmenting human performance in clinical, occupational, and military applications.  The episode is available now wherever you listen to podcasts…. Read More

What a revolution might it be if the healthcare system was built around our actual health, as opposed to the way it currently centers on treating an injury or disease once it occurs?  That’s one of the ideas that Dr. Dan Pardi explores in the latest episode of STEM-Talk (Episode 146). In his conversation with IHMC Founder Dr. Ken Ford and IHMC Senior Research Scientist Dr. Marcas Bamman, Pardi talks about the flaws in a health system that is really built around treatment, rather than health and wellness support — and what it might take to switch that focus.  Pardi… Read More

IHMC has a long legacy of excellence in exoskeleton research. The potential benefits of exoskeletons include increased strength and endurance, reduced joint loading, resistance exercise, rehabilitation after injury, and enabling mobility for those with disease or disability. Two exoskeleton projects at IHMC — Quix and Eva — are undergoing upgrades thanks to a robotics team that is itself been expanded in the last two years. Read more about this and other IHMC projects in the newest edition of the newsletter. Quix is the fourth exoskeleton prototype developed by the IHMC exoskeleton team. It’s getting a new lease on life as… Read More