Steve McGuire earned his M.S. in 2016 and Ph.D. in 2019 in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder after a career in the Marine Corps, where he served as a helicopter pilot in combat missions. Building on his work in human-robot interaction as a NASA Space Technology Research Fellow, his Human-Aware Robotic Exploration (HARE) group investigates modern challenges in field robotics leveraging AI/ML techniques in precision agriculture and ecology. His research focuses on improving organic capabilities of field robots in sensing, perception and mobility, and has been supported by NASA, USDA, ONR, DARPA and industry. He hold FAA pilot certificates at the commercial level in rotary and fixed-wing, and an instructor certificate in rotary wing aircraft.
Relevant expertise:
- Long-term autonomous exploration: developing autonomous systems for GPS-denied environments with minimal human supervision, including DARPA SubT Challenge work on underground autonomous exploration
- Human-robot trust in autonomous systems: Creating frameworks to predict and quantify human trust in autonomous guidance systems for planetary rover and autonomous vehicle operations