Jessica Hodgins
.
has been an experimentalist from an early age
.
Her research interests have long been in the area of dynamic activities
.
and balance
.
She did her PhD in legged locomotion with
Marc Raibert
at the CMU and
MIT Leglab
making a planar biped
flip
and run up and down stairs
.
The CMU LegLab recently had a reunion
.
at the 25th anniversary
of the RI Institute.
After graduating from CMU with a PhD in computer science,
she began working
in graphics
and spent eight years at Gatech building the
Animation Lab.
They worked on simulation of human motion
.
natural phenomena
,
and group behaviors,
.
She worked with a great group of students and postdocs there. They
went on yearly hikes although the size of the group seemed to vary with the
weather:
In the fall of 2000,
she and Chris
packed up their house and labs in two moving vans, put everything
that the movers wouldn't take in a Ryder truck (including the house plants and four 300 gallons tanks of koi)
.
and moved to CMU's
School of Computer Science .
At CMU she has
constructed a motion capture lab
to provide data to improve on her earlier
work in human simulation.
The graphics group at CMU is growing again and has begun a new tradition
of fall hikes
although their apparent inability to read maps correctly and the fall hunting season
made hiking more of a challenge in PA than the October snow in GA had.
Outside of work, she and Chris
bought a big old house
.
which means that they now have way too many house projects
underway
They have a backyard pond
,
with a number of koi
.
This interest in fish appears to be hereditary although her parents had
different ideas on how they should be enjoyed
.
When
she can find time, she enjoys designing and constructing with textiles
,
,
making found art
,
flying stunt kites
,
and ocean kayaking
.
She and Chris bought a sea kayak in Rhode Island,
which turned out to be somewhat longer than their car
and recently they joined the Sylvan Canoe Club on the Allegheny River
.
She's taken some great trips: to the Galapagos,
Alaska
,
Japan
,
and Hong Kong
.
A collection of friends from grad school have gotten together every summer since 1985 for a weekend and built a pyramid with varying degrees of success and increasing complaints from the bottom row: