G’day, I’m Isaac (everyone just calls me Ike).

I’m interested in exploration.

More specifically, I’m interested in leveraging autonomy, robotics, and artificial intelligence to enhance our ability to explore extreme environments. Using these technologies, we can explore scientifically interesting locations (the depths of the oceans, complex cave systems, extraterrestrial bodies/surfaces, etc.) in novel and unconvential ways (unique robotic morphologies, intelligent machines, human-machine teaming, etc.).

To that end; I’m currently pursuing my PhD at the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at Stanford University in California as a Graduate Fellow.

Before that, I spent time as a researcher at:

• NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
• The University of Southern California’s Space Engineering Research Center.
• The International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research.
• The University of Western Australia’s Computer Science Department.
• (and other neat places!)

I consider myself fortunate to work in R&D, write papers, collaborate with passionate teams, explain complex topics, and engineer wicked systems. Marrying these skills in pursuit of solving novel problems is why I get up in the morning.

In other words: I’m happiest when I’m in a lab with a big computer, a busy whiteboard, and with like-minded peers united by a hard problem with a valuable solution.

When I’m not doing that you can be certain that I’m on some outdoor adventure, forgetting to take the lens cap off my camera (https://www.instagram.com/ike.images/), or jamming in a band (:

Here are some tidbits that I’ve picked up over the past few years that I feel are important:

1. Ideas are disposable.
2. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
3. Approach adversity in a spirited way.
4. Think deeply about where you want to invest your time.
5. Take your eyes off the screen — often!
6. When opportunity presents itself, there is really no sense in playing it safe.