Brian Gerkey is cofounder and CEO of OSRF. Prior to joining OSRF, he was Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage. Previously, Brian was a Computer Scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI, and before that, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University. Brian received his PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2003, his MS in computer science from USC in 2000, and his BSE in computer engineering, with a secondary major in mathematics and a minor in robotics and automation, from Tulane University in 1998. Since 2008, he has worked on the ROS Project, which develops and releases one of the most widely used robot software platforms in robotics research and education (and soon industry). He is founding and former lead developer on the open source Player Project, which continues to maintain widely used robot simulation and development tools.