Cole Johnson
I build intelligent systems that interact with the physical world.
Work
Software Engineer, StarshieldOct 2026 – PresentWriting software for Starshield, SpaceX’s satellite network for national security missions. That’s about all I’m allowed to say.
Founder & CPOAug 2025 – Aug 2026People tell an AI things they’d never tell a survey. Echo gave consumers free premium AI chat, and turned those conversations into research organizations can buy: surveys, asset tests, and voice interviews answered in minutes, not weeks.
Co-Founder & CTOJan 2021 – Jul 2025Levees hold water back; we raised the land instead. I led the robots that inject wood slurry underground and lift an acre of ground a foot in a day, at up to a tenth the cost of a levee.
Graduate Research Assistant · Research Fellow2021 – 2024Prostheses that learn the person wearing them. I built learning-based control for robotic legs and hands, and safety-aware planning for legged robots. Best Paper at ISMR 2023, Best Paper Finalist at ICRA 2025.
Research
Real-Time Balancing of Stability and Plasticity in Continual Learning Enables Adaptive Speed Estimation for Lower-Limb Prostheses
Dynamic Tube MPC: Learning Tube Dynamics with Massively Parallel Simulation for Robust Safety in Practice
Adaptive Lower-Limb Prosthetic Control: Towards Personalized Intent Recognition & Context Estimation
3 more papers
Transfer Learning for Walking Speed Estimation Across Novel Prosthetic Devices and Populations
Real-Time Adaptation of Deep Learning Walking Speed Estimators Enables Biomimetic Assistance Modulation in an Open-Source Bionic Leg
Accelerating Constrained Continual Learning with Dynamic Active Learning: A Study in Adaptive Speed Estimation for Lower-Limb Prostheses
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