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ISR- Connor Tate

Connor Tate

  • PhD Student

Biography

Connor Tate is a research associate at IHMC and a Gulf Breeze native who is passionate about ecotourism, sustainability, and conservation.  She joined IHMC in 2017, working with David Fries on sensor-enabled reefs for autonomous ocean monitoring. She has since worked on a variety of projects across multiple domains. She is a Ph.D. student in the IHMC/UWF Intelligent Systems and Robotics program, where her dissertation research focuses on expanding autonomous environmental monitoring capabilities for improved prediction, remediation, and management of marine phenomena. Her thesis focuses on developing adaptive monitoring strategies between remote sensing platforms, autonomous ocean platforms, and human field teams.

At IHMC, she works with Dr. Matthew Johnson on human-machine teaming and team dynamics. With Dr. Ian Perera, she works to develop and run human subjects research experiments for the assessment of trust calibration in human-machine teams. Her work in eXplainable AI with Dr. Robert Hoffman has been to develop a method for evaluating XAI systems. Her work with Dr. Jeffrey Phillips in the human performance lab has been to develop an underwater eye-tracking system for monitoring diver physiology and cognitive function. She enjoys working at the intersection of humans and the environment and believes that each person's health depends on the other.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental geosciences from the University of Florida in 2015. After graduating from UF, she traveled to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Those experiences, combined with her family, education, and travel-focused upbringing, fostered a great sense of stewardship for the environment, marine resources, and Pensacola.