IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 106

Student's Corner

Introducing the New
Student Activities Committee!
By Srivatsan Srinivasan

I

am Srivatsan Srinivasan (I know! I
go by the name Watson to make
everyone's life easier), one of the
newly appointed cochairs of the IEEE
Robotics and Automation Society (RAS)
Student Activities Committee (SAC).
I am taking over for Megan Emmons,
acting senior chair of the RAS SAC,
as primary author of the "Student's
Corner" column in IEEE Robotics and
Automation Magazine (RAM). Since
this is my first column, I wanted to keep
it simple and introduce you to the SAC's
new leadership.
Émile Durkheim said, "Each new
generation is reared by its predecessor;
the latter must therefore improve in
order to impro-
ve its successor.
He also hopes to
Themovement is
encourage excellent circular." We, the
new SAC mem-
young professionals bers, will strive
to carry on with
to be more actively
the great work
involved with
our predecessors
have done for the
the RAS.
student commu-
nity in robotics
and try to improve upon it. We have ex-
citing new ideas for future RAM student
columns, including interviews with au-
thors of some great articles, robotics
teams from around the world working
on cool stuff, RAS Chapters that are
doing great work for the community,
talented and inspiring achievers in
robotics, and so on. We are also work-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2018.2853403
Date of publication: 12 September 2018

106

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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ing on a way for RAS members to get
involved with the RAM student col-
umn by submitting ideas and questions
for interviews. But, without further
ado, please meet the new leadership.
Geoff Nagy-SAC Chair
Geoff Nagy is a com-
puting science Ph.D.
degree student at Si -
mon Fraser University,
Van couver, Canada,
studying robotics un-
der the supervision
Geoff Nagy
of Richard Vaughan.
Nagy's interest in computers began at a
young age when he started writing com-
puter games, and he quickly discovered
how much fun it was to build and pro-
gram robots, too!
In 2016, he graduated from the
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg,
Canada, with an M.Sc. degree in com-
puter science, while also living in Van-
couver and leading a small robotics
team for a virtual reality startup, Archi-
act. He began full-time Ph.D. degree
studies at Simon Fraser University
immediately afterward. Nagy is look-
ing forward to working with the RAS
team as he takes on his new role as the
RAS SAC chair.
Tamon Miyake-SAC Cochair
Tamon Miyake received his B.S. degree
from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan,
in 2015 and his M.S. degree in 2017. He
is now a doctoral student at Waseda
University and a visiting student at
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
His main research interests include

september 2018

control strategies for
health-care robots, es -
pecially a gait-training
robot for elderly peo-
ple to improve their
motor control ability
and so avoid falls.
Tamon Miyake
Miyake's interest in
this type of research relates to how
much he enjoys walking. He likes tak-
ing walks in the city and seeing the
landscapes and buildings from vari-
ous viewpoints. He is enthusiastic
about improving the robotic technol-
ogy that enables us to walk at any
time, and he wants to share his enthusi-
asm with the student community. He
looks forward to making meaningful
contributions for the benefit of all.
Ikram Touir-SAC Cochair
Ikram Touir received
her research master's
degree in computer
science and intelligent
pervasive systems at
Sousse Universit y,
Tunisia, in 2018. She
Ikram Touir
is currently a Ph.D.
de gree student, whose research inter-
ests focus on artificial and computa-
tional intelligence. She has been an
active IEEE Member volunteer since
2014. Touir served as the IEEE RAS
regional student representative for
Region 8 in 2017 and as the RAS Tuni-
sia Chapter treasurer from 2017 to
2018. She was appointed an RAS SAC
cochair in 2018. She is also a member
of the IEEE Nominations and Appoint-
ments Committee.
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018

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