Elsa Forberger

PhD student, NSTGRO Fellow
LASER Lab, Department of Astronautical Engineering
University of Southern California

My goal is to support large-scale In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), construction, and transport operations on the lunar surface by ensuring robotic teams can adapt to the wear and tear caused by harsh extraterrestrial enviroments. To do so, my research centers around robust and adaptive control methods that can be used to identify and account for changes in capability. I am also interested in ways to incorperate knowledge of robot capabilities into high level task selection and planning.

Previously, I was the lead software engineer for an ISRU project at Blue Origin, and supported the development of technologies that turned lunar regolith into solar panels and oxygen. My work involved everything from robotics and controls to sensor calibration and testing.

Before joining Blue Origin, I did my B.S. in Computer Science (2018 - 2022) and M.S. in Robotics (2023-2024) at the University of Minnesota. During my M.S., I was advised by Professor Maria Gini in the Next Generation Robotics Lab. There, I worked on vibration-based fault detection for NASA's TRIDENT lunar drill. Additionally, I spent some time in the Interactive Robotics and Vision Lab working on dynamic gesture recognition for AUVs under Professor Junaed Sattar.

Orchid / LinkedIn / Resume

Publications and Presentations

	Fast Vibration-Based Autonomous Fault Detection for Extraterrestrial Drills E. Forberger, S. Boelter, B. Glass, M. Gini RSS Workshop on Resource Constrained Systems, 2025
	A Concept for Planetary Drilling Autonomy S. Boelter, E. Temesgen, G. Brown, E. Forberger, B. Glass, M. Gini 2025 ICRA Workshop on Field Robotics, 2025
	Abstract: Autonomy and Arctic Analog Testing for Planetary Drills S. Boelter, E. Forberger, L. Weber, B. Glass, M. Gini 4th Ice Core Community Meeting (ICECOMM), 2025
	Social Robots in Service Contexts: Exploring the Rewards and Risks of Personalization and Re-embodiment S. Reig, M. Luria, E. Forberger, I. Won, A. Steinfeld, J. Forlizzi, J. Zimmerman ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 2021

Experience

	LASER Lab, University of Southern California Lab Member, 2026-Present Advised by Professor Keenan Albee
	Blue Origin Software Engineer, 2025-2026 Space Resources Program, Blue Alchemist Project
	Next Generation Robotics Laboratory, University of Minnesota Graduate Researcher, 2024-2025 Under Professor Maria Gini
	ASTER Labs Research Scientist, 2022-2023
	Interactive Robotics and Vision Lab, University of Minnesota Undergraduate Researcher, 2020-2022 & Graduate Researcher, 2023 Under Professor Junaed Sattar
	Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnege Mellon University Undergraduate Researcher through NSF REU Program, 2020 Under Professor John Zimmerman

Teaching and Mentorship

	Robotics (ME 5286), University of Minnesota Graduate Teaching Assistant, Spring 2024
	Code the Gap, University of Minnesota Volunteer Coordinator, 2020-2022
	Rocket Team, University of Minnesota Graduate Mentor, 2023-2025. Firmware Lead, 2020 - 2024.

Miscellanea

Scans of NASA documents
I collect and scan older documents related to space exploration.

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