Mathew entered Penn’s doctoral program in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in January of 2018. His research interests broadly lie in the application of numerical methods to problems in control systems, estimation, and planning. Mathew’s work at GRASP is focused on the usage of numerical optimization to generate robust motion for robots that undergo frictional contact and impacts. Mathew received his undergraduate education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In his senior thesis, advised by Prof. Seth Hutchinson, he developed a novel method of jointly optimizing design and motion parameters of robotic systems for task performance.