The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition robotics team lead by Dr. Robert Griffin secured a $3 million grant from the Office of Naval Research for SquadBot 2. The grant was approved in the summer of 2022. The grant will allow the team to build upon the progress made on the first iteration of the SquadBot platform, named Nadia. A fully functional Nadia would be capable of working alongside and in place of soldiers in operations including building search, patrol, and bomb disposal. “Nadia has the potential to shift the paradigm for urban operations and exploration, with the potential… Read More

On episode 139 of STEM-Talk Dr. Matt Kaeberlein talks about the biology of aging, rapamycin, and what he has learned about slowing the aging process. Kaeberlein is a professor of pathology at the University of Washington who is well-known for his investigations into the basic mechanisms of aging. Much of his research is focused on identifying interventions that promote healthspan and lifespan. In a wide-ranging interview, STEM-Talk cohosts Dr. Ken Ford and Dr. Dawn Kernagis talk to Kaeberlein about longevity, his research into fasting and caloric restriction, and his recent investigations into rapamycin, the only known pharmacological agent to extend… Read More

Failure is an important part of research. But in a risk-averse culture, the chance to learn from failure is hampering the development of some of the most important national defense tools needed for our arsenal, argues the expert guest on Episode 138 of STEM-Talk. Dr. Mark Lewis is executive director of National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI), a nonpartisan think tank focused on technologies that are critical to the future of national defense. Previously, Lewis was the Director of Defense Research & Engineering in the U.S. Department of Defense, overseeing technology modernization for all military services and DoD… Read More

If Jones Moore grows up to be an engineer, IHMC might be able to take a little credit. Jones, 12, has been to nearly every Science Saturday session Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has hosted. This month, he spent his first week at Summer Robotics Camp as a rising eighth-grader. He was one of nearly 40 students who spent a week learning from the best at IHMC’s 2022 summer camp experience. Jones says the best part of robotics camp was building robots and learning to code. Robotics Camp is one of IHMC’s signature community outreach efforts for students,… Read More

Sleep is a precious commodity — especially if you struggle with it. Nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, and circadian biology are an interrelated web with tremendous influence on the quality of our sleep. In the latest episode of STEM-Talk (episode 137), we pick up a conversation with Dr. Greg Potter in an interview where he explores topics including insomnia, sleep apnea, time-restricted eating, exercise, nutrition, and supplementation. The first part of our interview (STEM-Talk episode 136) with Potter brought a deep-dive into circadian biology, sleep, diet, and metabolism. Potter ‘s work has been featured in the BBC World Service, the Washington Post,… Read More

Dr. Niranjan Suri has been named an associate director at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Suri is an IHMC Senior Research Scientist and Associate for Research for the Information Sciences Division at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Suri has been part of the IHMC family since 1994 and was part of its beginnings at the University of West Florida.  It is a fitting chapter in the career of Suri, who first connected with IHMC founder Dr. Ken Ford as a UWF student and teaching assistant back in the early 1990s. “I have known Niranjan since he was a… Read More

Carol Carlan has joined the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition as director of philanthropy. Carlan, who most recently had been president of Ascension Sacred Heart Foundation, brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and a deep connection to the community to the new role. “IHMC is a jewel of Pensacola. The team there has built an international reputation for excellence in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics,” Carlan said. “The healthspan, resilience, and performance research is on the same trajectory. The chance to be a part of IHMC, and to tell its story, was a thrilling opportunity. I… Read More

Your body’s “master clock” evolved to help keep you alive and safe. And when it’s disrupted, it doesn’t take long at all for the negative impacts of that circadian rhythm shift to be felt in your health and well-being. The latest episode of STEM-Talk (episode 136) brings a deep-dive into the intricate connections between your body’s circadian biology, sleep, diet, and metabolism, with Dr. Greg Potter. Potter gained attention in the U.S. and Europe for his research into the importance of biological rhythms and sleep and how they affect people’s lives. His work has been featured in the BBC World… Read More

While immunotherapy is a relatively recent – and promising – cancer treatment, the underpinning of it goes back more than 100 years.  That’s according to IHMC Evening Lecture guest Dr. Duane Mitchell, whose April 2022 talk focused on immunotherapy for treatment of cancers, including the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma. Mitchell is an expert in the development of innovative immunotherapy treatments for children and adults with malignant brain tumors. He is the Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. He serves as Director of the University of Florida Clinical Translational Science Institute and Co-Director of the Preston A. Wells,… Read More

It’s not enough for elite warfighters to have a high level of physical fitness and cognitive ability in today’s military. They also have to be resilient. While the tools and weapons of today’s warfighters have evolved dramatically over the past few decades, the military’s understanding of the biological processes that govern human performance and resilience has not evolved to the same level. For years now, Ken Ford, IHMC’s co-founder and CEO, has envisioned a research team focused on finding innovative ways to extend the capabilities and resilience of high-performing humans who routinely operate in extreme conditions and environments. “One of… Read More

Can you spot the future superstar soccer player in this crowd? If your choice is anyone other than short, slight boy on the second row, second from the right, bad news: You missed Lionel Messi. Dr. Mark Williams, Senior Research Scientist at IHMC, has made it his business to learn what makes an elite athlete like Messi the best. His March 2022 talk as part of the IHMC’s popular Evening Lecture Series shared some of the common traits of the greats. The Evening Lecture Series has returned to both the Pensacola and Ocala IHMC campuses. To keep up with the… Read More

Progress is continuing on the new building project for IHMC’s Pensacola campus.  An architect was chosen in March 2022 for the project, which will create a research hub for human healthspan, resilience, and performance work. The winning team was a group of lead locally by DAG Architects, whose principle is Dave Luttrell, in partnership with Brent Amos from Cooper Carry, headquartered in Atlanta.   DAG is a Northwest Florida firm. Cooper Carry is a national firm with substantial experience in biomedical facilities.   DAG and Cooper Carry have stepped up to the plate within days of being selected and have been… Read More

The work that put bipedal robots on their feet came from IHMC — and its key authors were honored by an international conference recently. The groundbreaking work of IHMC’s Senior Research Scientist Dr. Jerry Pratt was honored at the 20th International Conference for Humanoid Robots virtually in late summer of 2021. A journal article authored by Pratt with co-authors Sergey Drakunov, Ambarish Goswami, and John Carff, an IHMC senior research associate, was named Most Influential Paper — a distinction spanning the 20-year history of the conference. “Capture Point: A Step toward Humanoid Push Recovery” has been cited more than 1,000 times… Read More

How can you put the “spring in your step” for an exoskeleton?   The answer could exploit key principles of locomotion neuromechanics to build wearable devices that improve the economy, stability and agility of human movement.    It’s something Dr. Gregory Sawicki has been working on at Georgia Institute of Technology. Sawicki is bringing his expertise to the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition as a senior research scientist.   He joined IHMC in January 2022 on a part-time appointment.   Sawicki will embed with the robotics, exoskeletons and human robotics interdependence group focusing on two broad areas.   “One is to help guide… Read More

A $20 million hub of research into human healthspan, resilience, and performance is moving closer to coming out of the ground.  The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has issued a Request for Qualifications for architectural, engineering and construction administration services. This RFQ can be found at https://www.ihmc.us/2022building/  Proposals are due Feb. 11. Once finalists are culled from the applications, presentations will be scheduled. A decision is expected by Feb. 28, 2022; construction is expected to begin later this year.  The new IHMC Healthspan, Resilience and Performance Research Complex will be a leading-edge lab and office building. The projected… Read More

Science Saturday is back in business for 2022. IHMC’s popular STEM outreach program hosted four sessions in the fall of 2021 for grade-schoolers in both Ocala and Pensacola. The free, monthly event featured increased safety measures in response to the pandemic and still brought students a lineup of hands-on projects geared toward sparking the love of science for students in grade 3-6. The educational series is moving forward in 2022, says Ursula Schwuttke, director of educational outreach for IHMC, continuing its longstanding tenure as a community fixture that sees IHMC and community scientists lead half-day sessions that use “fun science”… Read More

Taher Rahgooy, a Ph.D. candidate of the intelligent systems and robotics program launched by the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and University of West Florida, became the program’s first graduate at UWF’s Fall Commencement in December 2021. Rahgooy was among the initial cohort of five students to join the program when it was established two years ago and was one of two students who transferred to UWF from Tulane University on the heels of Dr. Brent Venable, the program’s founding director. Venable previously held a joint appointment as a professor of computer science at Tulane and research scientist at… Read More

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on Wednesday that the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has received a 2021 HIRE Vets Medallion Award for the research center’s commitment to employing veterans. The Medallion Award is the only federal-level veterans’ employment award that recognizes a company or organization’s commitment to recruiting, hiring, and retaining veterans. IHMC joins 848 other companies and organizations across the country who also were recognized for hiring veterans and providing them with career opportunities that take advantage of the diverse skills they acquired during military service. “I’m a Navy veteran and so many of the… Read More

Dr. Mark Williams, the former Chair of the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the University of Utah and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sports Sciences, has joined the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition as a Senior Research Scientist. A native of North Wales, Williams previously held senior leadership positions at Brunel University in London and the University of Sydney in Australia before moving to the United States in 2016. He has published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals in fields ranging from exercise and sports science to experimental psychology to neuroscience. Williams’ research focuses on… Read More

IHMCs Director and CEO Dr. Ken Ford announced that Dr. Morley O. Stone, the former senior vice president for research at the Ohio State University is joining the institute as Chief Strategic Partnership Officer. Dr. Stone is recognized as an international leader in human performance and biomimetics with nearly 30 years of experience in research and development. At IHMC, he will assume a leadership role in developing external strategic relationships with federal agencies, research universities and the private sector as well as implementing, coordinating and initiating scientific projects and assisting and mentoring IHMC scientists and research staff. As senior vice… Read More