NASA Reserch
About Kimberly Hambuchen
What attracted them to a career in robotics?
"My college majors were biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering. I was interested in image processing on both sides, which led me to take a computer vision class. It was in this class that I learned about robotics and how computer vision would allow robots to "see," which in turn could allow them to learn. I became involved in my university's humanoid robotics lab through an independent study and decided to remain with robotics during my graduate school years" -Kimberly Hambuchen
What prepared them for their job?
"I feel that I'm never fully prepared for my job because I learn new things every day that make me better at what I do. However, my engineering background was crucial to the career I've chosen. Problem solving is what robotics engineers do every day. While my undergraduate work certainly gave me some engineering experience, it was the graduate work that gave me the most preparation for my career." -Kimberly Hambuchen
What projects are they currently working on?
She said she was currently working on a software applications and tools for supervising remote robots over lunar-like time delays.
What is considered to be their career highlight?
"The highlight of my career so far has been successfully supervising three types of robots (each developed at different NASA centers) remotely. The robots were in Moses Lake, Wash., and I was in Houston overseeing operations. We purposefully injected a 10-second round-trip delay in our communication stream. I performed many activities with the robots, including driving, docking to power recharge systems, stationing one robot onto another and managing camera systems to increase my efficiency" - Kimberly Hambuchen when asked the same question.
Is the scientist involved in mentoring students now and if so how?
She said "Our group mentors many robotics competition teams, the largest of which is the FIRST robotics team - the Robonauts. (FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.") While I personally have not been involved in much of the team activities (I volunteer for the regional championships), many of our engineers work with the team. Many of the FIRST team students go on to co-op at JSC and some eventually end up in our group as full-time employees." when asked this question.
Was the scientist involved in any NASA opportunities as a student? If so, how did this influence their careers?
there was nothing on her page on the web site that mentioned or that she said about if she was able to help as a student.
What advice do they have for students interested in a career in robotics?
She said "I would suggest to students interested in robotics to explore many different areas of academics" when asked what advice she had for students interested in the robotics and things down that ally.