our mission

Founder, Chair

Stuart is an engineering executive with over fifteen years in AI and machine learning, he has scaled technical organizations at Google DeepMind, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, and Snap. At Hands On Robotics, he champions the mission of putting research-grade robotics in anyone's hands — so the next generation of students and researchers can explore AI by building it. As a part of Hands On Robotics, Stuart developed and co teaches Stanford's CS 123 course with Jie Tan. 

Co-founder, Head of Partnerships & HRI Research

Teresa is a physician, Clinical Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at Stanford Medicine, and faculty at the Stanford Institute of Human Centered Artificial Intelligence. She began her career in medicinal chemistry at Genentech, developing novel therapeutic molecules, and now works at the intersection of medicine, AI, and robotics. At Hands On Robotics, she leads the donation of Puppers to schools and clinics and is building research collaborations exploring how robots can lift the patient experience — because she believes that when people feel better, they get better.

Head of Education Outreach & Global Community

Ankush is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University and the long-standing Lead Teaching Assistant for CS 123, Stanford’s foundational AI robotics course featuring the Pupper platform. As a driving force behind open-source robotics education, Ankush leads all educational programming, global outreach, and education partnerships at Hands On Robotics. His work focuses on scaling the accessibility of research-grade hardware, ensuring the Pupper robot reaches diverse academic programs and philanthropic causes worldwide to democratize applied AI and robotics training.

Co-Founder

Jie Tan is a Research Scientist at Google Research working at the intersection of machine learning, physics simulation, and real-world robotics — including teaching legged robots to walk by training them in simulation first. At Hands On Robotics, he helps turn frontier AI research into things you can hold: hands-on learning experiences where students of all ages build, train, and play with real robots running real machine learning. As a part of Hands On Robotics, Jie co teaches Stanford's CS 123 course with Stuart.  

Co-founder

Lee Redden was an early force behind Hands On Robotics. A roboticist who began in Stanford's robotics labs, he co-founded Blue River Technology, where as CTO he built computer-vision systems that give crops plant-by-plant care — technology that now runs on John Deere machines across millions of acres. At Hands On Robotics, he helped shape the founding vision: that the best way to understand AI robotics is to build one with your own hands.

Founding Engineer

Nathan Kau first-authored the paper introducing Pupper to the research world — built to prove that legged robotics didn't need a six-figure budget. He co-created Pupper with Gabrael Levine and Stuart Bowers during his time at Stanford, where he led the robot's mechanical and systems design as a mechanical engineering student and leader of Stanford Student Robotics. He then built and taught the original Stanford independent study course that turned the robot into a curriculum which is now CS 123 at Stanford University. Through Hands On Robotics, the robot he helped create now teaches students around the world to build, train, and understand AI robotics with their own hands.

Founding Engineer

Gabrael Levine co-created Pupper with Nathan Kau and Stuart Bowers during his time at Stanford, where he studied computer science and helped lead Stanford Student Robotics. He helped build and teach the original Stanford independent stud robotics course that turned the robot into a curriculum which is now CS 123. Through Hands On Robotics, the robot he helped create now teaches students everywhere to build, train, and understand AI with their own hands.

Saachi is a medical student at Stanford with a background in bioengineering and medical device development, and the founder of a nonprofit serving children across the country. Her research explores pediatric human-robot interaction — how robots can comfort, engage, and care for young patients. At Hands On Robotics, she helps shape how Pupper shows up in pediatric care, because a robot that makes a child smile is doing real medicine.

Jaden Clark is a PhD student in AI and robotics at Stanford, where he's a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and NSF Graduate Research Fellow. His research spans robots that learn from and interact with the world — from expressive robot behavior to multi-robot systems deployed in the wild, including algorithms that surveyed penguin populations in Antarctica. At Hands On Robotics, he helped bring Puppers to the bedside at Stanford's children's hospital — putting robots that learn in front of the kids who'll grow up with them.