Featured Speakers

Hilary Carter oversees the development of decision-useful research projects and content programs that support open source as a paradigm for mass collaboration at scale. Together, the Research and Communications department broadens the understanding of the impact of open source software, open hardware, open standards, and open data for people, enterprises, governments, and society at large.

Hilary’s career began in financial services with experiences in corporate finance, research and analysis, and global private banking. Her career pivoted to digital technology, where she focused on mobile communications and digital media consulting. Before joining the Linux Foundation, Hilary led a global, syndicated research institute focused on blockchain technology.

She earned an MSc in Management from the London School of Economics.

Ramón Roche is General Manager of the Dronecode Foundation, an open-source project under the Linux Foundation supporting drone and robotics development. He leads a global ecosystem behind technologies like PX4 and Pixhawk, and has over a decade of experience in open source. Ramón also organizes the PX4 Developer Summit, uniting hundreds of drone developers and innovators each year.

Panagiotis Tsiotras is the David and Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair Professor at the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace. From 2017-2024 he served as an Associate Director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Over the years, he has held visiting research appointments with Virginia Tech, INRIA Rocquencourt (France),
Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris (France), JPL and MIT. His current research interests are in optimal, stochastic, and nonlinear control and their connections with AI and real-time decision-making, emphasizing autonomous vehicle applications. He has published over 450 journal and conference articles in these and related areas. He
is currently the Chief Editor of Space Robotics in the Frontiers of Robotics and AI and an Associate Editor of the Dynamics Games and Applications. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the IEEE Technical Excellence Award in Aerospace Control. He is a Fellow of AIAA, IEEE, and AAS.

Kyriakos G. Vamvoudakis was born in Athens, Greece. He earned his Diploma in Electronic and Computer Engineering (equivalent to a Master of Science) from the Technical University of Crete, Greece, in 2006, graduating with highest honors. After relocating to the United States, he pursued further studies at The University of Texas at Arlington under the guidance of Frank L. Lewis, obtaining his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2008 and 2011, respectively. From May 2011 to January 2012, he served as an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Research Associate at the University of Texas at Arlington and the Automation and Robotics Research Institute. Between 2012 and 2016, he was a project research scientist at the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems, and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He then joined the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor, a position he held until 2018.  He currently serves as the Dutton-Ducoffe Endowed Professor at The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech. He holds a secondary appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His expertise is in reinforcement learning, control theory, game theory, cyber-physical security, bounded rationality, and safe/assured autonomy.  He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the 2019 ARO YIP Award, the 2018 NSF CAREER Award, the 2018 DoD Minerva Research Initiative Award, and the 2021 GT Chapter Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award. His work has also been recognized with several best paper nominations and international awards, such as the 2016 International Neural Network Society Young Investigator (INNS) Award, the Best Paper Award for Autonomous/Unmanned Vehicles at the 27th Army Science Conference in 2010, the Best Presentation Award at the World Congress of Computational Intelligence in 2010, and the Best Researcher Award from the Automation and Robotics Research Institute in 2011. Dr. Vamvoudakis has served on various international program committees and has organized special sessions, workshops, and tutorials for several international conferences. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Aerospace Science and Technology and currently serves on the IEEE Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board. Additionally, he is an Associate Editor for several journals, including Automatica, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, and the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications. He is also a Senior Guest Editor for the IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems for the special issue on the intersection of machine learning with control. Previously, Dr. Vamvoudakis has served as a Guest Editor for various special issues, including those in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, and IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. He is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in Electrical/Computer Engineering, a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece, an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and a Senior Member of IEEE.