Title:	Robotic Martians: Orbiters, Landers, Rovers and a Half Century of Unmanned Exploration
Speaker:	Christopher S. Edwards Associate Professor of Planetary Science Northern Arizona University, AZ

Abstract: Humans have sent an armada of robotic explorers to Mars over the past several decades. These spacecraft have enabled countless scientific discoveries and revealed Mars a complex planetary body much like our own Earth. For example these spacecraft have revealed ancient aqueous processes on Mars, which have been explored in detail from orbit but also via landed platforms such as rovers. However getting to Mars is not without significant risk. Nearly half of all spacecraft never make it. In this talk, we’ll examine some of the recent findings by NASA missions, discuss some upcoming missions launched this summer and review some of the challenges of sending spacecraft to Mars, into orbit, and onto the surface.

Biography: Christopher S. Edwards is an Associate Professor of Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University. He is a science team member and instrument scientist for the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer on the Emirates Mars Mission “Hope”, a participating scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, a participating scientist on the OSIRIS-Rex mission to Bennu, a Co-Investigator on the Lunar Trailblazer mission and has worked on numerous other Mars missions including the 2001 Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System, Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer, and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars. Edwards participated on these science and instrument teams while perusing his Ph.D. at Arizona State University, as the Planetary Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, as a Research Scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center and now at NAU. His research focuses on the composition, physical properties and processes, and morphology of planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on rocky bodies including the Earth. A major element of his research has been the design and development of infrared remote sensing instruments for use in space, the laboratory and for fieldwork. His research uses infrared spectroscopy, radiometry, laboratory spectroscopic measurements, geologic field observations, and numerical modeling, and has taken him to field sites in the western U.S., Yellowstone, Hawaii, and Spain, as well as the Himalayan mountains of Bhutan.

Title:	The Metaverse, Augmented Reality and Magic Leap
Speaker:	David Chu Vice President of Software Engineering at Magic Leap

Abstract: What is the Metaverse? What are the key technologies to enable a compelling metaverse? Magic Leap has been working on this problem for the past decade. With a combination of rigorous hardware and software co-design, sensor-rich perception, state-of-the-art immersion, and lessons learned from the field, the forthcoming Magic Leap 2 system will be a key enabler for the Metaverse.

Biography: David Chu is Vice President of Software Engineering at Magic Leap. He was formerly with Google where he led teams on AR, VR, edge cloud, and game streaming. Prior to that, David was an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and researcher at Microsoft Research. David's interests are in augmented reality, mobile computing, virtual reality, and applied machine learning. He received the Best Paper award in MobiSys 2015, the Best Paper nomination in MobiSys 2012, the Best Demo award in MobiSys 2014, and the Best Demo nomination in SenSys 2011. David's work has appeared in the media on several occasions, such as at: TechCrunch, PC Magazine, GameSpot, Ars Technia, Slashdot, The Verge, Engadget, Yahoo and Wired. David has served as the Program Committee Chair of ISMAR 2018 and NetGames 2017, and the General Chair of HotMobile 2016. He received a B.S. from the University of Virginia, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley while an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.