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Daniel M. Lofaro Ph.D is an Electrical Engineer and Roboticists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) within the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR). He also serves as an Office of Naval Research Global Science Director in Tokyo, Japan. Additionally, Lofaro is a professor at the University of Maryland, he owns and runs Lofaro Labs LLC, and is the director of interdisciplinary laboratory Lofaro Labs Robotics which is a part of the international laboratory group called the DASL Autonomous Systems Lab Group (DASL Group). He is also an affiliate professor in the School of Business and the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University. An NSF-EAPSI and ONR-SFRP Fellow, he received his doctorate from the ECE Department at Drexel University in 2013 under the guidance of Dr. Paul Oh. He was the Research Lead of the DARPA Robotics Challenge team DRC-Hubo from 2012 to 2014. His research focus is in the overarching field of real-world robotics. Within this his research interests include Swarm Robotics, Emergent Behaviors, Robot Design, Real-World Human/Robot Interaction, Humanoid Robotics, Complex Control Systems, Secure Robotics, Cloud Robotics, Unique Musical Instrument Design, and Real-Time Systems. Lofaro's work and collaborative work has been featured in the Washington Post, NPR, IEEE Spectrum, Popular Science, and other prominent print, web, and TV news sources.

Achievements include:

• Office of Naval Research (ONR) D&I Workshop Orginizer, 2020/2021
• Workshop on Workshop on Robotic Swarms and Emergent Behavior - Chair, IEEE-RAS UR 2021
• Received US/UK S&T Cooperation Award from U.S. Department of Defense and U.K Ministry of Defense, 2020
• Lofaro Labs's Wiki reaches 10M+ hits, 2021
• Workshop on Future Trust in Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Artificial Intelligence - Chair, IEEE-RAS UR 2020
• IEEE Medal for Environmental & Safety Technologies Committee 2018/2019/2020
• Co-Organizer, Co-Robot Workshop, U.S. Embassy, Croatia, 2019
• Best Paper Award IEEE CIS-RAM 2019
• Treasurer, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots,IEEE-Humanoids 2019
• Workshop Organizer, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots,IEEE-Humanoids 2019
• Lofaro Labs's Wiki reaches 2M+ hits, 2019
• Workshop Organizer, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots,IEEE-Humanoids 2018
• Chair - Travel, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems,IEEE-IROS 2017
• Workshop Organizer, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots,IEEE-Humanoids 2017
• Chair - Video, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots,IEEE-Humanoids 2016
• Office of Naval Research SRFP fellow, 2015/2016
• DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC): Team DRC-Hubo Research Lead, 2013
• Doctoral recipient, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Drexel University, 2013
• Workshop Chair, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Advanced Study Institute on Unmanned Systems (ASI) in Cesme, Turkey, NATO-ASI 2012
• Designed Hubo to Throw First Pitch at Major League Baseball Game, 2012
  
• NSF-Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Honorable Mention, 2009
  
• NSF-East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) Fellow, 2008
  
• Lester Kraus Award, 2008
  
• Dean’s Fellowship, 2008
  
• Honors College - Graduated Honors with Distinction, 2008
  
• Drexel University, Cum Laude, BS/MS, 2008