Personal

I was born in South Africa and grew up in the coastal resort town of Plettenberg Bay. I attended Plettenberg Bay Junior School until age 13, and then moved to Grey High School in Port Elizabeth were I was a boarder. I matriculated in 1992, and started my BSc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cape Town in January 1993. I completed the 4 year honors degree there, and then spent the next two years ('97 & '98) working in London and traveling through Europe. During this time I decided I would like to further my education in the field of Robotics. I investigated the various course options, and in October '99 came over to LA to have a look at the USC Robotics research lab and the MSc in Robotics offered there. I decided that USC was the place for me, but to meet the entrance requirements, I needed a formal Computer Science background. I returned to the University of Cape Town in 1999 and completed the first two years of their computer science degree in that year. At the same time I registered for a full thesis MSc in Mechanical Engineering. I conducted research in robotics for my MSc and built an animatronic Aardvark. I moved over to LA in August 2001 to start the MSc in Intelligent Robotics at USC in the fall semester.