The Team

Scott Hassan, Founder

Scott Hassan is best known as founder of eGroups (a group email messaging company now known as Yahoo Groups) and was the key software architect/developer of Google, Alexa Internet and the Stanford Digital Library.

Throughout his life, Scott has also had a deep interest in open source software, computers and autonomy. These interests led him to start Willow Garage, a privately-funded research company directed to advancing the state of robotic technology in autonomous  devices. 
 
Scott brings to his role at Willow Garage a combination of startup experience and expertise building large software systems using open source tools.

Scott earned his B.S. in Computer Science from SUNY Buffalo in 1992 and, in his ongoing search for learning, continued his studies in the Computer Science Masters programs at  both Washington University and Stanford University.

Steve Cousins, President & CEO

Steve Cousins is a seasoned executive, entrepreneur and innovator with a strong track record for managing research and development organizations and creating a significant return on investment. Prior to joining Willow Garage, Steve was the senior manager of the User-Focused Systems Research Group at the IBM Almaden Research Center, one of the top Human-Computer Interaction Research groups in the world.

Before he assumed his roles at  Willow Garage and Almaden Research, Steve managed the Advanced Systems Development Laboratory at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Earlier in his career Steve was a member of the research staff in the Information Sciences and Technology Laboratory where his research interests were in information visualization, personal information management and digital libraries.  Steve's career in research began at the Medical Informatics Laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine, followed by research at Interval Research while completing his doctoral work at Stanford.

Steve received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and his B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Washington University in St. Louis, where he currently serves on the Computer Science department's external advisory board.

He has given numerous presentations on topics including information visualization, digital libraries, and human-computer interaction, web 2.0 technologies.  He is the general chair for the User Interface Software and Technology conference UIST 2008.

 

Eric Berger – Co-Director Personal Robotics Program

Eric Berger is an experienced researcher with an extensive background in computer science and robotics.  His expertise focuses on practical design and control of complex robotic systems, covering topics ranging from machine learning, sensor fusion, multi-dof controls and full-system reliability to real-time distributed system architectures.

Prior to joining Willow Garage as the Co-Director of the Personal Robotics Platform Program, Eric spent three years at Stanford leading the software and electronics development efforts on the Personal Robotics project. Eric’s other research included developing the architecture for the STAIR (STanford AI Robot)program in the Stanford AI lab, leading development of several force-controlled mobile manipulators, heading the collaboration with a Japanese company to explore robotic hand-shaking and other research projects in geometric computation. Previously Eric worked with startups ranging from consumer robotics to satellite tracking.

Eric received his Undergraduate and Master's Degree in Computer Science, with honors, from Stanford and is currently on leave from the PhD program at Stanford.

Keenan Wyrobek – Co-Director Personal Robotics Program

Keenan Wyrobek is an experienced researcher whose background includes a strong focus on engineering design - specifically multi-objective optimization in the design of complex electro - mechanical systems. His design expertise also includes haptic, medical and personal robotic systems.

Prior to joining Willow Garage as a Co-Director of the Personal Robotics Platform Program, Keenan was employed as the Chief Operations Officer at Reading Revolution, a privately- held educational products company. There he was involved in a successful yearlong turn-around. At Stanford Keenan spent two years leading the mechanical development efforts on the Personal Robotics project, leading to the development of PR1.

Keenan received his BS in Engineering Mechanics from the Johns Hopkins University and an MS in Mechanical Engineering Design from Stanford University. At Stanford he was a National Science Foundation fellow and Stanford Graduate fellow. Keenan is currently on leave from the PhD program at Stanford.