Jessica Hodgins . has been an experimentalist from an early age . Her research interests have long been in the area of dynamic activities . and balance . She did her PhD in legged locomotion with Marc Raibert at the CMU and MIT Leglab making a planar biped flip and run up and down stairs . The CMU LegLab recently had a reunion . at the 25th anniversary of the RI Institute.

After graduating from CMU with a PhD in computer science, she began working in graphics and spent eight years at Gatech building the Animation Lab. They worked on simulation of human motion . natural phenomena , and group behaviors, . She worked with a great group of students and postdocs there. They went on yearly hikes although the size of the group seemed to vary with the weather:

In the fall of 2000, she and Chris packed up their house and labs in two moving vans, put everything that the movers wouldn't take in a Ryder truck (including the house plants and four 300 gallons tanks of koi) . and moved to CMU's School of Computer Science . At CMU she has constructed a motion capture lab to provide data to improve on her earlier work in human simulation. The graphics group at CMU is growing again and has begun a new tradition of fall hikes although their apparent inability to read maps correctly and the fall hunting season made hiking more of a challenge in PA than the October snow in GA had.

Outside of work, she and Chris bought a big old house . which means that they now have way too many house projects underway

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They have a backyard pond , with a number of koi . This interest in fish appears to be hereditary although her parents had different ideas on how they should be enjoyed . When she can find time, she enjoys designing and constructing with textiles , , making found art , flying stunt kites , and ocean kayaking . She and Chris bought a sea kayak in Rhode Island, which turned out to be somewhat longer than their car and recently they joined the Sylvan Canoe Club on the Allegheny River . She's taken some great trips: to the Galapagos, Alaska , Japan , and Hong Kong .

A collection of friends from grad school have gotten together every summer since 1985 for a weekend and built a pyramid with varying degrees of success and increasing complaints from the bottom row: