Geoff Hollinger

Geoff Hollinger is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University, and a Ron and Judy Adams Faculty Scholar. His research focuses on robotic decision-making, planning, and coordination for autonomous systems, particularly in underwater and multi-robot environments. He leads the Robotic Decision-Making Laboratory and has expertise in mission planning, control systems, and marine robotics.

Dr. Hollinger holds a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University (2010), an MS in Robotics (2007), and a BS in General Engineering and BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College (2005). His work spans theoretical advancements and practical applications, including underwater docking systems, autonomous exploration, and soft robotics for hazardous environments.

Research Interests:

• Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) systems and docking
• Multi-robot coordination and task assignment
• Probabilistic planning and decision-making
• Behavior trees and formal grammars for task planning
• Underwater manipulation and grasping
• Energy-efficient trajectory planning

Key Achievements:

• Recipient of the 2017 ONR Young Investigator Award
• 2017 Celebrate Excellence Awards and Engelbrecht Young Faculty Award
• Developed frameworks like Angler for intervention tasks and Wave for underwater emulation

Labs/Teams: Robotic Decision-Making Laboratory, Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute (CRIS).