Bio: Kyle Yoshida grew up in Pearl City, Hawaii, and attended Kamehameha Schools Kapalama from kindergarten through high school, graduating in 2014. Throughout high school, he gained an interest in biological research and engineering, so he majored in Bioengineering and minored in African Studies at Harvard University. At the beginning of his research career, Kyle interned at the University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center, studying mechanisms of DNA double-strand break repair, the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, conducting high throughput screening of plant extracts for cancer treatments, and at the University of Hawaii Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education, studying the genes contributing to choanoflagellate multicellularity using transposon mutagenesis. In the latter half of his undergraduate career, he was a student in the Akamai Internship program and worked at HNu Photonics, developing a system that can track the pH and cell density of closed cell culture systems that are currently used on the International Space Station as part of the BioChip Space Lab. He also worked in the Harvard BioDesign lab, specializing in real-time ultrasound feedback for exoskeletons, and the Locomotion in Mechanical and Biological Systems lab at Johns Hopkins University, studying adaptive control in electric fish. These research experiences inspired him to pursue a PhD at Stanford University in the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine Lab, where he focused on designing soft robots and haptic devices.
His past work has been recognized through winning competitions (Brown University IEEE Micromouse, 2016 & 2017), poster awards (Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2017), paper awards (IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, 2020; IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2020; Genetics, 2015), and presentation awards (American Indian Science and Engineering Society, 2016 & 2017). Kyle is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Fellowship. He has also received support from his Native Hawaiian community through scholarships from the Pauahi Foundation and Kalino Foundation. Kyle is a member of SACNAS, AISES, and IEEE and was a student trainee in the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute's Mind, Brain, Computation, and Technology program and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society Lighting the Pathway to Faculty Careers program. As a graduate student, he worked as an Equity and Inclusion Student Recruiter with the Stanford School of Engineering, an officer for the Stanford Native American Graduate Students Association, and a community associate with the Stanford Graduate Life Office. In the summer of 2020, he founded Honua Scholars. This organization provides mentorship and professional development to college students throughout Hawaii interested in pursuing professional or graduate education or careers in STEM. In his free time, Kyle enjoys listening to classical music, singing in the church choir, and writing short stories.
Short Bio: Kyle Yoshida is a postdoctoral researcher in the Mechanically Intelligent Autonomous Robotics Lab at Washington State University. He received his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and his SB in Bioengineering with an African Studies minor at Harvard University. He received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Stanford Graduate Fellowship, Stanford Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Fellowship, and the Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. His work, spanning robotics, haptic perception, and human-robot interfaces has been recognized through awards at the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology National Conference. In his free time, he manages Honua Scholars, a STEM-mentorship program recognized as one of the Top 10 Native STEM Enterprises to Watch by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.
not everything is used but everything is useful