Message to students

Welcome to the GRASP Lab! Thank you for browsing our web pages.

There are many exciting opportunities at GRASP and many different ways you can be a part of GRASP. We have approximately 20 undergraduates, 40 graduate students, and 8 faculty members in the lab. You can learn more about robotics, vision and control by doing independent studies, working on research projects, doing a senior design project, a masters thesis or a doctoral thesis.

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student and you want to be a part of the lab, you will need a faculty sponsor. Browse the list of faculty and try to contact the person whose interests and activities sound the most fascinating to you.

If you are a graduate student seeking admission, admissions are handled through the academic departments at the University of Pennsylvania. The most likely candidates are Computer and Information Science, Electrical and Systems Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. Remember, it is possible to pursue a degree program in one department while working with a faculty member in another department.

This is a great time to be working in robotics. The career opportunities available to our graduates are perhaps the broadest among all fields of engineering. A wide variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, electronics and computers, chemical, and biomedical, are recruiting roboticists. Some of our recent graduates have taken positions in academia and are now supervising their own students. Others have gone into government and industrial research laboratories, where they are heading their own research groups. Some have gone into consulting positions, while others have started their own companies.

I am always delighted to hear your suggestions and comments about our lab, the courses you are taking at Penn, and about your experiences at GRASP, or at Penn, or anything else you might want to chat about. You are always welcome to stop by my office or send me mail.

—Vijay Kumar