UMass Amherst or the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of America’s top public research and land-grant universities. Being the flagship of the University of Massachusetts systems, this American research university was founded on April 29, 1863. It is the largest public university in New England with a population of more than 27,000 students enrolled annually.
Currently, the UMass Amherst has a total of eight schools and colleges offering bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees in 88 undergraduate and 72 graduate areas of study. Categorized as a Research University with very high research activity, it has many research centers, facilities, laboratories and institutions to support and augment its need to educate and give solid experience to its students.
The Laboratory for perceptual Robotics under the university’s Computer Science Department helps with research on computational systems that address sensory and motor issues. The DEXTER robot, one of the projects conducted in this laboratory, is a platform used for studying bi-manual dexterity (the skill of using two hands to perform certain tasks) developed to help researchers study the acquisition of concepts and cognitive representations from interaction with the environment.
Major problems in cognitive science and artificial intelligence are also being addressed through this robot. Other labs inside the UMass Amherst include the Robotics, Computer Vision, and Graphics.
