# Justin Abel

> Staff Software Engineer at Fox Robotics

Location: Denver, Colorado, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/justinabel

Driven by a passion for the design and development of robots

Website/Portfolio: jrabel.github.io

## Work Experience
### Staff Software Engineer @ Fox Robotics
Jan 2024 – Present
Working on the software infrastructure behind autonomous forklifts

### Senior Software Engineer, Software Platform and Architecture @ Outrider
Jan 2022 – Jan 2024 | Golden, CO

### Autonomous Vehicle Software Engineer @ Outrider
Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | Golden, Colorado, United States

### Software Engineer @ Boeing
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Charleston, South Carolina Area
Advanced Production Systems at Boeing Research and Technology

- Developing algorithms for task sequencing/scheduling given unique manufacturing constraints
- Researching/developing custom motion planning solutions for industrial robots
- Created web applications (using React and Node.js) and 3D visualization tools (using Three.js)
to provide engineers with simple and scalable interface to custom robotic planning algorithms
- Built up continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline to automate testing,
containerization, and deployment to cloud environment

### Graduate Student Researcher @ Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Robotics Institute
As part of a small team of multi-disciplinary researchers, we are developing a ground-based mobile robot used to autonomously survey and phenotype crops for plant geneticists and farmers.  Our robot, known as "The Robotanist", utilizes a series of non-contact sensors (LIDARs, stereo cameras) and contact sensors (spectrometers, penetrometers) to extract relevant biochemical and physiological characteristics. In short, the goal of this project is to automate, accelerate, and add reliability to the process of crop monitoring and phenotypic data collection of plants.

My research is centered around robotic grasping of leaves in the field (mainly of maize and sorghum). This process includes the real-time 3D reconstruction and modelling of crops in order to detect leaves from live stereo images. The second half of my research explores using kinematic and manipulation techniques to control our robotic arm to grasp a detected leaf. Once a leaf is grasped, a spectrometer is applied to acquire a unique spectrum of reflected light. These representative spectra are then used to train learning algorithms for predicting compositional traits of the plants.

### Teaching Assistant @ Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Mechanical Engineering Department
- DIY Design and Fabrication (24-672) - Fall 2017, Spring 2018
- Numerical Methods (24-311) - Spring 2016, Spring 2017

### Mechanical/Robotics Engineering Intern @ Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Field Robotics Center
- Designed and manufactured custom components for mobile robotic systems
- Helped integrate and test GPS functionality into agricultural robot for autonomous navigation

### Undergraduate Research Assistant @ Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | Nanoscale Transport Phenomena Lab
- Developed custom simulations (in MATLAB and C code) to model energy transport through nanoscale structures using Monte Carlo style ray-tracing techniques (published).

### Robotics Engineer (Contractor) @ Edge Tech Labs
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Arlington, VA
- Software development in ROS/C++ for motion planning and dynamic obstacle detection on a mobile robot


## Education
### Master of Science - MS in Robotics
Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018

### Bachelor of Science - BS in Mechanical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Jan 2013 – Jan 2017


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/justin-abel
- Website: https://jrabel.github.io

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Source: https://flows.cv/justinabel
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/justinabel/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-22