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Dr. Schempf spent most of his life living abroad, and graduated with his german high school diploma in 1980 in Caracas, Venezuela. The Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering was earned in 1984 from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. A Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering followed in 1986 and was awarded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He proceeded to enroll in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Joint Ph.D. program in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering, and earned his doctorate in 1990. During his graduate research phases he was involved in the
Deep Submergence Lab at WHOI, and took part in both cruises ending with the discovery and exploration of the luxury liner TITANIC and the german battleship BISMARCK. The focus of his research work was the JASON Jr. and JASON systems which are deep diving underwater robots used in searches of the TITANIC, BISMARCK, and roman shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, with imagery and controls being relayed via satellite to several museum sites across the U.S. Dr. Schempf is currently employed as a Sr. Systems Scientist at the Robotics Institute at CMU, and works on such projects as a NASA space-shuttle tile rewaterproofing robot, DoE hazardous waste cleanup robots (in-tank waste, thermal insulation systems and D&D systems), oiltank
internal ultrasonic and visual inspection robots for the U.S. Army, automated cargo transport AGVs for the U.S. Postal Service, caisson inspection robots for the FHWA, power-line inspection robots for EPRI, in-fuel-tank corrosion-inspection robot for the petrochemical industry, nuclearand petrochemical storage-tank cleanup robots for industry and government, pipe asbestos-insulation abatement robots for the DoE, sports-equipment testing robots for Adidas AG, small portable urban reconnaissance robots for DoD and DARPA, state-of-the-art operator interface systems for telerobotics operator training at the IUOE, live internal steel gas-main repair robot systems for national gas utilities, and nursery container-handling automation systems for the USDA. Dr. Schempf also co-founded Automatika, Inc. in 1996, a specialty robotics and automation consulting, product development and manufacturing company located in Pittsburgh, PA. He is an IEEE and ASME Society member and has published extensively in conferences and refereed journals, and holds several patents in robotic and automated systems. He is a father of two sons and a daughter, and lives in Pittsburgh, PA. | 