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

Dr. Bonnie Dorr of The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has been named a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery. She is one of 95 fellows ACM is honoring this year for their contributions in computing and information technologies. Dorr is the associate director of IHMC’s Ocala branch and one of the institute’s senior researchers. She is recognized as one of the nation’s leaders in the field of natural-language processing. “This is a great honor for Bonnie,” said IHMC CEO Ken Ford. “She has had such a distinguished career. Her expertise extends from cyber security to social… Read More

IHMC Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist James Allen has been elected to the rank of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Each year the association elects members whose efforts to advance science and its applications are considered distinguished and scientifically valid. AAAS specifically cited Allen for his “broad contributions to artificial intelligence and natural-language understanding, including seminal contributions in temporal logic.” In addition to his work at IHMC, which he joined in 2006, Allen also has an appointment as the John H. Dessauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester in Rochester,… Read More

Dr. Marcas Bamman is an internationally recognized researcher known for his scientific contributions to the biology of human skeletal muscle and medical rehabilitation. He is the founder and former director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Exercise Medicine. Bamman and the UAB center are recognized as world leaders in the biological mechanisms underlying exercise-induced adaptations and their clinical utility in disease prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. He joins IHMC as a Senior Research Scientist and will become part of a biologically-motivated team that IHMC founder and CEO Ken Ford has been forming for the past several years. Since… Read More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has named Dr. Bonnie Dorr of IHMC to its Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Study Group for a three-year term. Dorr is a leading researcher in the field of natural language processing. She serves as an associate director and senior research scientist at IHMC’s Ocala branch. The ISAT Study Group brings together 30 scientists and engineers from across the country who provide continuing and independent assessments of advanced information science and technology as it relates to the U.S. Department of Defense. DARPA is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible… Read More

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences announced this week that STEM-Talk has been nominated for the Webby Awards, an international competition recognizing internet excellence. STEM-Talk, an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), received nominations in the science and education podcast categories for the Webby Awards as well as the Webby People’s Voice Awards.  Academy members select winners for the Webby Awards while the People’s Voice Awards are voted on by the public. People have until May 7th to visit vote.webbyawards.com to cast their ballots. As a Webby nominee, STEM-Talk has been singled… Read More

For the second time in its three years in existence, IHMC’s podcast STEM-Talk has won first place in the science and medicine category at the 14th Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards. The international competition features thousands of nominees in more than 20 categories. According to Todd Cochrane, who founded the competition in 2005, People’s Choice recognizes the top podcasts in the world as nominated by listeners. “The awards are truly independent and the shows that are nominated and win have significant bragging rights as being listener favorites,” said Cochrane. STEM-Talk is nearing its 100th episode and also closing in on… Read More

UWF-IHMC Press Release 20191007.pdf Doctoral program director Brent Venable, center, with Jacques Perry, left, and Duncan Calvert, right This fall, the University of West Florida and the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition welcomed the inaugural cohort of five students to the newly established intelligent systems and robotics doctoral program. The program centers on developing leading-edge software and hardware technology that combines human and machine elements to exploit their respective strengths and mitigate their respective weaknesses. It aligns with the University’s strategic vision for research that impacts Northwest Florida’s economic development and technology enterprise. The first of its kind in… Read More

The University of West Florida and the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition announce Dr. Kristen “Brent” Venable as the inaugural director of the Ph.D. in Intelligent Systems and Robotics program. UWF is partnering with IHMC for the program, which begins in Fall 2019. Venable will shape and direct the new program, hire faculty and recruit doctoral students. “The highly-anticipated doctoral program has found a well-suited leader in Dr. Venable,” said UWF President Martha D. Saunders. “Her expertise in artificial intelligence matches well with the program’s vision to develop thought-leaders in these exciting fields.” Venable joins UWF from Tulane… Read More

Pensacola’s cutting-edge research center The Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) and the Andrews Research & Education Foundation (AREF), the research arm of the Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze, have signed an agreement to collaborate on human-performance research. “We’re really fortunate to have two world leaders in human-performance right here in our community,” said Ken Ford, co-founder and CEO of IHMC. “This partnership is going to leverage the work of both organizations for the benefit of sports medicine as well as programs geared toward improving the capabilities and resilience of astronauts, fighter pilots, divers and other elite members… Read More