Emma Pinegar

I’m a second year PhD student studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah. I earned my BS in Computer Science also from the University of Utah in Fall 2021.

Experience

I am currently a teaching assistant for graduate level AI, and have previously TA’d the Introduction to Robotics course at the University of Utah. I am advised by Professors Alan Kuntz and Jake Abbott working on a new kind of steerable needle. I am primarily focusing on robotics applications that help treat medical conditions or improve the quality of life of disabled persons. As an undergraduate I worked with Dr. Tucker Hermans researching 3D reconstruction methods that could be applied to several computer vision tasks.

Projects

I have worked on several projects recently, the most notable being:

• Screw-tip magnetically steerable needles
• An electrostatic actuator for a tendon robot
• A magnetically actuated cannula which resulted in a HAMLYN Symposium publication
• 3D object reconstruction in scenes with multiple objects
• Android app with remote music controls, texting, dialing, toggling do not disturb, etc. using an Arduino with gesture recognition
• Industrial inspection of Coca Cola bottles using the image processing toolbox in Matlab
• Baxter pick-and-place using contrained 6 DOF inverse kinematics

Publications

• Screw-tip Soft Magnetically Steerable Needles: TMRB 2023
• Magnetically Actuated Cannulas Can Assist In Their Own Insertion: HAMLYN 2022

Presentations

• Computing Research Day Poster Presentation March 2023
• Artificial Intelligence Course Lecture March 2023
• Undergraduate Research Symposium November 2021

Coursework

• Motion Planning
• Neural Engineering
• Robot Millisystems
• Micromachining
• Aritificial Intelligence
• Robot Control
• Intro to Robotics
• Image Processing
• Electrical Engineering
• Artificial Intelligence
• Scientific Computing
• Human/Computer Interaction
• Computer Networking
• Data Structures & Algorithms
• Computer Systems

Awards & Honors

• Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Honorable Mention 2022
• UROP Scholar Fall 2021
• Inclusion@RSS Fellow 2021
• NSF REU Summer 2021
• Senior Capstone Project Honorable Mention Spring 2021
• Dean’s List