Sam Zapolsky

Sam Zapolsky is the current Chief Technical Officer at Dextrous Robotics. Prior to their current position, they were a Research Scientist at the Toyota Research Institute from April 2017 to June 2019. Their work there focused on hardware, planning, and controls for the Shared Autonomy Group. Sam also R&D safe-guarded manipulation and navigation capabilities for in-home robot prototypes. From July 2012 to September 2012, they were a Research Assistant at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia where they researched the simulation and physics of legged robots walking on low or variable friction surfaces at the Dynamic Legged Systems Lab. Sam also developed and deployed an inverse dynamics controller with contact-force prediction for the Hydraulic Quadruped robot (HyQ) and published the results. Sam Zapolsky obtained their Ph.D. from George Washington University in February 2017. Their dissertation focused on discovering what circumstances make robots fail and then using simulted tools to modify a robot or its control system to prevent those failures from happening in the future, leading to a better and more robust robots.

Sam Zapolsky attended The George Washington University, where they received a bachelor's degree in Economics and International Affairs.

Sam Zapolsky works with Jason Cortell - PE, Hardware Design & Development, Suzanne Drumwright - Manager, Operations. Their manager is Evan Drumwright, CEO. Some direct reports include Alex Soare - Senior Perception Engineer, Doug Schwandt - Mechanical Engineer, and Cody Sheffels - Software Engineer.