Gabriel Hugh Elkaim | Jack Baskin School of Engineering

E-Mail Address

Title

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Undergraduate Director (Robotics)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Telephone Number

831-459-3054

Office Location

Engineering 2, Room 337B

Office Hours

By appointment

Mail Stop

SOE2

Biography

I was born in Sousse, Tunisia. I spent a fair bit of my childhood moving around from place to place, as my father was a civil engineer working on infrastructure projects of various sorts around the world. I spent six years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I went to high school. My undergraduate degree is from Princeton University, in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Following Princeton, I went to work for an international oilfield services company: Schlumberger. I spent a year in Algeria, and another in Nigeria before leaving Schlumberger. From there I went to Israel, where I spent a year studying Aeronautics at the Technion in Haifa. After my return from Israel, I started at Stanford University, in the Aeronautics and Astronautics department. I received both my Masters and Ph.D. from Stanford, where I built an autonomous catamaran for my thesis. The catamaran was based on a modified Prindle-19, with the mast removed and replaced by a freely rotating wingsail. After graduation, I spent a year in Los Angeles consulting on an autonomous ground vehicle project. I joined the Computer Engineering Faculty at UC Santa Cruz in 2003, with a research focus on autonomous and embedded systems. I started the Autonomous Systems Lab, and have a number of graduate and undergraduate students working with me on a variety of research projects. My favorite (and most popular) class to teach is CMPE118, Introduction to Mechatronics, where teams of students build a robot in 10 weeks. I recently returned from sabbatical in Lisbon, Portugal, where I was working at ISR/IST. I am married, with a son and another on the way. My wife and I enjoy living near the Ocean on the West Side of Santa Cruz, chasing after our 2 year old son, and are expecting his baby brother this summer.

Research Areas

Embedded systems; robust software architectures for real-time reactive systems; sensor fusion; guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system identification; robust and advanced control schemes; feedback and control systems; robotics; unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs); cooperative control

Web Page

Selected Publications

Degree

Ph.D in Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2002, Stanford University
MSE in Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1995, Stanford University
BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 1990, Princeton University

Students

Alumni