Titus H. Klinge

Staff Software Engineer, Third Wave Automation
Affiliate Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University

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Ames, Iowa, United States

I am a robotics SWE at Third Wave Automation, specializing in perception. Currently, I am working on real-time safety systems, including modeling, developing, and implementing impact detection algorithms for autonomous forklifts in C++ and Python.

My career/research interests primarily revolve around solving technical problems, especially those at the boundary of my comfort zone, challenging me to learn new techniques or a new domain. I thoroughly enjoy learning and applying classical machine learning and probabilistic robotics techniques in my current role. I enjoy solving real-time computing problems arising in robotics and safety-related issues involving runtime verification. I am also interested in applications of analog computing and systems of differential equations.

I received my B.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Iowa State University, studying molecular programming, an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computer science, software engineering, and molecular biology. My research focused on applying analog computing and software engineering techniques to molecular programming. I was particularly interested in the chemical reaction network (CRN), an abstract mathematical model of a molecular system. Chemical reaction networks are continuous-time dynamical systems with either continuous or discrete state spaces. Continuous CRNs are deterministic and are roughly equivalent to Shannon’s general-purpose analog computer. In contrast, discrete CRNs are stochastic and are related to many models of distributed systems, such as Petri nets and population protocols.

Previously, I spent six years teaching computer science at higher-ed institutions around the Midwest, including Drake University, Carleton College, and Grinnell College. I thoroughly enjoy teaching and course design and released some of my materials under a Creative Commons license. Check them out on my teaching page.

News

Sep 1, 2024 Promoted to Staff Software Engineer at Third Wave Automation
Aug 8, 2024 Invited journal article Real-time computing and robust memory with deterministic chemical reaction networks published in Natural Computing
Apr 19, 2024 Invited journal article Reactamole: functional reactive molecular programming published in Natural Computing
Dec 1, 2023 Promoted to Senior Software Engineer at Third Wave Automation
Jan 18, 2022 Started new role as a Software Engineer at Third Wave Automation

Selected Publications

  1. Robust biomolecular finite automata
    Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I.,  and Lutz, Jack H.
    Theoretical Computer Science (2020)
  2. Runtime Fault Detection in Programmed Molecular Systems
    Ellis, Samuel J.,  Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I., Lutz, Jack H., Lutz, Robyn R., Miner, Andrew S.,  and Potter, Hugh D.
    ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (Mar 2019)
  3. Reactamole: functional reactive molecular programming
    Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I., Osera, Peter-Michael,  and Rogers, Allison
    Natural Computing (Apr 2024)