Melissa M. Tanner

My curriculum vitae.

I am currently working on mechanical design and path planning for JPL's Axel rover. See the Quick Links at the bottom for more info on Axel. I recently won a grant from the Keck Institute for Space Studies to conduct a Student-led Mini Program on Tools and Algorithms for Sampling in Extreme Terrain, hiring 4-5 SURF students to work on Axel.

Teaching

2011 - present: Graduate Shop TA for the Mechanical Engineering Teaching Shop

2009 - 2011: Teaching Assistant, ME 72, Engineering Design Laboratory. Challenges: "Revenge of the Hindenburg" and "Extreme Recycling"

2010: Graduate Teaching Assistant for ME 71, Introduction to Mechanical Design.

2009: Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for 6.141: Robotic Science and Systems I.

Publications

(Manuscript accepted): Nesnas, I.A.D, Matthews, J.B., Abad-Manterola, P., Burdick, J.W., Edlund, J., Morrison, J.C., Peters, R.D., Tanner, M.M., Miyake, R.N., Solish, B.S., Anderson, R.C, "Axel and DuAxel Rovers for the Sustainable Exploration of Extreme Terrains," The Journal of Field Robotics, 2012.

Dickson, W.B., Polidoro, P., Tanner, M.M., and Dickinson, M.H., "A linear systems analysis of the yaw dynamics of a dynamically scaled insect model," The Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol. 213, 2010, pp. 3047-3061

Correll, N., Arechiga, N., Bolger, A., Bollini, M., Charrow, B., Clayton, A., Dominguez, F., Donahue, K., Dyar, S., Johnson, L., Liu, H., Patrikalakis, A., Robertson, T., Smith, J., Soltero, D., Tanner, M., White, L., and Rus, D., "Indoor Robot Gardening: Design and Implementation," Intelligent Service Robotics, Vol. 3, No. 4, 2010, pp. 219-232