My name is Jake Buzhardt and I am a PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Clemson University.

I am advised by Phanindra Tallapragada in the Applied Dynamical Systems Lab.

Broadly, my research interests are the modeling and control of nonlinear dynamical systems for robotic locomotion. Particular applications that I have studied include the control of offroad vehicles and the control of groups of interacting microswimming robots. Within this context, I have studied problems of parameter estimation, trajectory optimization, deep reinforcement learning, among others. More recently, my work has focused on data-driven modeling and control strategies based on finite dimensional approximations of the Koopman and Perron-Frobenius operators. In particular, I am interested in methods which account for the uncertainty that arises in the approximation of these operators or uncertainty that is inherent to the system or available measurements.

The best way to reach me is by email: jbuzhar[at]g.clemson.edu