Inspiring the Next Generation of Researchers

By Sathya Achia Abraham

When you’re born with a knack for building anything and everything, as engineer and roboticist James McLurkin is, you go with it and make it your life’s work. You do it because there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing.

McLurkin, well-known for swarm robotics – groups of dozens of small robots that work together toward a common goal – will be the keynote speaker at Virginia Commonwealth University’s inaugural Research Week: Profiling Student Research, which kicks off on Monday, April 18.

McLurkin, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University, will be the first to admit that his career found him.

“I didn’t have a choice. I was born building stuff,” he said, adding that as a child he’d spend hours upon hours building with LEGO bricks.

And the building hasn’t stopped.

Inspired by the social behavior of ants, and other similar insects that communicate with each other, McLurkin has developed software known as distributed algorithms for a group of robots called SwarmBots. Just as each ant has a purpose and specific task to accomplish to contribute to the group’s greater goal, so does each robot among the swarm. McLurkin developed the robots during a five-year stint with iRobot Corporation. Ultimately, armies of these tiny robots could be used for tasks such as search and rescue, surveillance and land-mine disposal, replacing humans.

Just for fun
McLurkin enjoys what he does – which is his number one piece of advice for rising researchers.

“It’s got to be fun,” he said. “If you’re doing research because someone told you to, you may as well just stop because you’re wasting everybody’s time … You need to decide that you like research and that it’s OK for you to like it – you yourself have to make that personal decision. Be bold enough to admit you’re an intellectual.”

He also recommends that students attend an academic institution where research endeavors are well supported and where faculty are supportive of undergraduate research and recognize the value of their students.

Many undergraduate students’ initial experience in a research setting involves building circuit boards or parts, or cleaning test tubes – which are not glamorous jobs. But McLurkin said that being in the lab surrounded by graduate students, going to meetings, hearing research questions, speaking the research language, just being immersed in that environment, is experience enough to offset almost any daily or routine task.

High Impact – UROP at MIT
McLurkin is actively involved in training the next generation of scientists, engineers and researchers, and he works with undergraduate students in his lab. He understands firsthand that these early experiences can make a lasting impression.

The graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that it was his experience with the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in his freshman year that launched him down the research path.

“To say it was impactful on my career – it was the single most important thing in my academic career, hands down,” he said.

According to McLurkin, the MIT UROP program has been around for more than 40 years and more than 70 percent of MIT undergrads take part in the program and get hands-on experience with a research project, led by a mentor.

“If you get into a lab and it’s a terrible experience, you know you don’t like it – that’s a very important lesson to learn,” he said.

Learn more from McLurkin at the Research Week kickoff event.

About McLurkin: In 2005, McLurkin was featured on PBS Nova program. McLurkin received the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to burgeoning MIT student investors. He was recognized by Time Magazine as one of five leading robotics engineers in their 2003 “Rise of the Machines” feature, and by Black Enterprise magazine as one of its “Best and Brightest Under 40.”