Jim Boerkoel

Jim Boerkoel is the Csilla & Walt Foley Professor and Department Chair of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College. He leads the Human Experience & Agent Teamwork (HEAT) Lab, which focuses on developing human-robot teamwork techniques. The HEATLab emphasizes scheduling and coordination in uncertain environments to create teams that leverage human and AI strengths.

Education:

• B.S. (Summa Cum Laude) in Mathematics and Computer Science, Hope College (2006)
• M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan (2008, 2012)

Research Interests: Automated planning/scheduling, multi-robot coordination, human-robot interaction, AI education, constraint-based scheduling, and robotics in advanced manufacturing.

Key Article Trends: Recent work emphasizes probabilistic temporal networks, human-robot collaboration fluency, and robust scheduling algorithms. Themes include uncertainty management, controllability metrics, and interdisciplinary applications like satellite imaging and manufacturing.

Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2017) for multiagent scheduling under uncertainty research.

Grants & Labs: Director of HEATLab; collaborations include NASA JPL for satellite scheduling. Active in education initiatives to expand computing research pathways.