top of page
Writer's pictureTaylor Northcut

Program Director - Alex Leonessa visits MEEN

Updated: Jan 23

Dr. Alexander Leonessa is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Leonessa manages the Dynamics, Control, and Cognition cluster within the Directorate for

Engineering's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI). Additionally, he is responsible for overseeing the CMMI’s involvement with the Major Research Instrumentation program. Dr. Leonessa served as a professor at Virginia Tech in the Mechanical Engineering Department. During his tenure at Virginia Tech, he held courtesy appointments in several other departments, including Industrial Systems and Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering and

Mechanics. His research focus at Virginia Tech revolved around the design and control of

humanoid robots and exoskeletons, with applications in both rehabilitation and human augmentation.


The purpose of Dr. Leonessa's visit was to share research opportunities at the NSF, more specifcially in the field of Robotics.




The National Science Foundation aims to catalyze interdisciplinary science and engineering research to understand and build the human-technology relationship; design new technologies to augment human performance; illuminate the emerging socio-technological landscape; and foster lifelong and pervasive learning with technology. Dr. Leonessa

manages the Dynamics, Control, and Cognition cluster within the Directorate for Engineering's Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) and oversees the CMMI’s involvement with the Major Research Instrumentation program, including the Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus (M3X) Program. A distinguishing

characteristic of the program is an integrated treatment of human intent, perception, and behavior in interaction with embodied and intelligent engineered systems and as mediated by motor manipulation.



View the funding solicitation: Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus (M3X)


If you missed his visit, here is a link to the recorded Zoom Meeting.


The Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus (M3X) Program supports fundamental research that explores embodied reasoning as mediated by bidirectional sensorimotor interaction between human and synthetic actors. For the purposes of this program, embodiment is defined as the capacity to interact with physics-based environments.


Program Contacts:

13 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page